This is being disucssed on other lists as well. Below, Martha Nussbaum
attempts to put Butler's paragraph into understandable language, and, to my
mind, over simplifies and misses the point Butler makes.
I thought the list may find this interesting.
Joanna
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Katherine Sheehan <ksheehan@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: PHIL-LIT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <PHIL-LIT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Date: Tuesday, February 16, 1999 10:54 PM
>Subject: Butler & Nussbaum & Bad Writing
>
>
>>Always a week or two behind the list, I finally got hold of the dead tree
>>version of Nussbaum v. Butler. I am still thinking about the piece (I'm way
>too slow
>>for cybercolloquy), but I thought the list might be interested in
>Nussbaum's
>>rewrite of Butler's entry in the Bad Writing contest. For those who have
>>deleted Butler's entry, it follows:
>>"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to
>>structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of
>>hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence,
>>and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking
>>of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that
>>takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the
>>insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed
>>conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies
>>of the rearticulation of power."
>>Nussbaum's rewrite:
>>"Marxist accounts, focusing on capital as the central force structuring
>>social relations, depicted the operations of that force as everywhere
>>uniform. By contrast, Althusserian accounts, focusing on power,
>>see the operations of that force as variegated and as shifting over time."
>>Elsewhere, Nussbaum declares that Butler's "writing is simply too thin
>>to satisfy" an audience of academic specialists. I am not yet prepared to
>>evaluate that claim, but it does seem to me that the ideas expressed
>>(however turgidly) in Butler's sentence are certainly a lot thinner by the
>>time Nussbaum is through translating them into "Good Writing". I wonder
>what
>>the list thinks.
>>KC Sheehan
>>---
>>Katherine C. Sheehan <ksheehan@xxxxxxxxx.
>>Southwestern University School of Law
>>and also a resident, if not a sage, of Valley Glen,
>>although local realtors call it "Valley Village Adjacent"
>>
>
>
attempts to put Butler's paragraph into understandable language, and, to my
mind, over simplifies and misses the point Butler makes.
I thought the list may find this interesting.
Joanna
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Katherine Sheehan <ksheehan@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: PHIL-LIT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <PHIL-LIT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Date: Tuesday, February 16, 1999 10:54 PM
>Subject: Butler & Nussbaum & Bad Writing
>
>
>>Always a week or two behind the list, I finally got hold of the dead tree
>>version of Nussbaum v. Butler. I am still thinking about the piece (I'm way
>too slow
>>for cybercolloquy), but I thought the list might be interested in
>Nussbaum's
>>rewrite of Butler's entry in the Bad Writing contest. For those who have
>>deleted Butler's entry, it follows:
>>"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to
>>structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of
>>hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence,
>>and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking
>>of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that
>>takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the
>>insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed
>>conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies
>>of the rearticulation of power."
>>Nussbaum's rewrite:
>>"Marxist accounts, focusing on capital as the central force structuring
>>social relations, depicted the operations of that force as everywhere
>>uniform. By contrast, Althusserian accounts, focusing on power,
>>see the operations of that force as variegated and as shifting over time."
>>Elsewhere, Nussbaum declares that Butler's "writing is simply too thin
>>to satisfy" an audience of academic specialists. I am not yet prepared to
>>evaluate that claim, but it does seem to me that the ideas expressed
>>(however turgidly) in Butler's sentence are certainly a lot thinner by the
>>time Nussbaum is through translating them into "Good Writing". I wonder
>what
>>the list thinks.
>>KC Sheehan
>>---
>>Katherine C. Sheehan <ksheehan@xxxxxxxxx.
>>Southwestern University School of Law
>>and also a resident, if not a sage, of Valley Glen,
>>although local realtors call it "Valley Village Adjacent"
>>
>
>