Hi Asher and Kevin
It appears I may well owe an apology for we are operating in
different discursive positions in relation to Butler's text. I feel,
at least I should provide a brief summary of my position, before I
leave this thread.
First, when reading Butler in terms of intellectual specificity it is
important to understand we are not dealing with a singular author
of performativity. When I say I refuse a reading of Butler, I
am using a technical skill in philosophy. By this I mean reading
Butler involves reading the various writers that occupy positions
within Butler's text. In making a philosophical reading of Butler,
which you are claiming I should (implying an assumption I have not)
would involve a long process. It would mean, in part, re-reading
Hegel's phemenology, re-reading Freud, re-reading Lacan and reading
the Gender Trouble text against Foucault within the discourse that
Gender Trouble proposes. There are several problematics raised here.
For example, the way Gender Trouble's duelist epistemology deals with
Freud's oscillations between monism and duelism, the duelist Hegelian
readings of Lacan and the apparent tensions of epistemology with
Foucault's writing.
Another question that concerns is performativity itself being
assigned to an invention of Butler's text. Performativity occupies an
important place in Romantic Aesthetics. Schelling's Trancendental
Idealism and Hegel's writings both underscore performance and
artifice as concerns of Romanticism and the resulting epistemological
wrestling with performativity this entails. So Butler is coveriing a
lot of ground here and operating within a territory with a
defined history. A discourse, in Foucault's terms. The mainstream
newspapers and popular press operate a performative theory, for
example. That is well known. Another problem is subversion. Subversion
becomes in Butler's text a dialectic in which the subverted is itself
subverted. A negation of the negation which as Butler admits, is
Hegelian.
>From the discursive position I am in, doing basic research on the
margins of philosophy and writing I am also subject to demands made
by my university in order to be awarded a doctorate. If I were to
undertake a reading of Butler as above the sort of thoroughness I
briefly outlined is expected. However, there is one overiding
condition for this award. That a contribution be made to new
knowledge in my area of a leading international standard, including
publication. (Actually, it makes me think of torture.) If I were to
follow the above path of reading Butler in this philosophical way, I
could demonstrate my proficiency in using technical skills but I
would also be in imanent danger of failure. I already know this, as my
first thesis, written in 1991, was concerned with performativity and
aesthetics, using in part critical readings of Schelling, Hegel,
Benjamin, Bahktin and more. So I am forewarned and already armed.
There is another tool in philosophy requiring another type of
technical skill, that of refusal. Refusal should not be thought of as
a lazy way, in fact it appears to demand more rigorous application
and the above philosophical reading appears, now, as a lazy way
of dealing with discourses. Refusal should not be confused with
negation. These are two completely different things. Foucault's HS
Vol 1 Repressive hypothesis chapter contains one of the most concise
Nietzchean inspired refutals of negation in recent philosphical
writings. It is perhaps possible to say that Foucault's refusal of
Hegelian dialectics is one of the most interesting things in his
writings. It is this tool and technical skill of refusal that I am
attempting to sharpen, in part by making use of email lists, although
they are limited.
So, as you perhaps gather, there is far more to a simple
looking text, a sentence even, then may at first appear. This is one
of Foucault's most important arguments and essential to his
understanding of discourse. As Foucault argues in his writings on
discourse and power: to know is to be trapped. This still leaves open
questions of how to set and avoid traps and even escape a trap. The
ways out of Butler's imanent impossibility, perhaps.
Whatever you do; please do not be discouraged from reading Butler by
my position and arguments. In fact, quite the opposite, I am out to
force a confrontation with the texts. Butler is important in
undermining the commonsense understanding of gender and sexuality as
being natural or essentialist. My problem is simply that what Butler
does is not good enough. It contains an imanent failure. I would
suggest a queering of theory following the etymology of queer as a
diagonal cutting across. That is a trangression that refuses the
interminable dialectic of subversion.
with the best wishes
Chris Jones.
It appears I may well owe an apology for we are operating in
different discursive positions in relation to Butler's text. I feel,
at least I should provide a brief summary of my position, before I
leave this thread.
First, when reading Butler in terms of intellectual specificity it is
important to understand we are not dealing with a singular author
of performativity. When I say I refuse a reading of Butler, I
am using a technical skill in philosophy. By this I mean reading
Butler involves reading the various writers that occupy positions
within Butler's text. In making a philosophical reading of Butler,
which you are claiming I should (implying an assumption I have not)
would involve a long process. It would mean, in part, re-reading
Hegel's phemenology, re-reading Freud, re-reading Lacan and reading
the Gender Trouble text against Foucault within the discourse that
Gender Trouble proposes. There are several problematics raised here.
For example, the way Gender Trouble's duelist epistemology deals with
Freud's oscillations between monism and duelism, the duelist Hegelian
readings of Lacan and the apparent tensions of epistemology with
Foucault's writing.
Another question that concerns is performativity itself being
assigned to an invention of Butler's text. Performativity occupies an
important place in Romantic Aesthetics. Schelling's Trancendental
Idealism and Hegel's writings both underscore performance and
artifice as concerns of Romanticism and the resulting epistemological
wrestling with performativity this entails. So Butler is coveriing a
lot of ground here and operating within a territory with a
defined history. A discourse, in Foucault's terms. The mainstream
newspapers and popular press operate a performative theory, for
example. That is well known. Another problem is subversion. Subversion
becomes in Butler's text a dialectic in which the subverted is itself
subverted. A negation of the negation which as Butler admits, is
Hegelian.
>From the discursive position I am in, doing basic research on the
margins of philosophy and writing I am also subject to demands made
by my university in order to be awarded a doctorate. If I were to
undertake a reading of Butler as above the sort of thoroughness I
briefly outlined is expected. However, there is one overiding
condition for this award. That a contribution be made to new
knowledge in my area of a leading international standard, including
publication. (Actually, it makes me think of torture.) If I were to
follow the above path of reading Butler in this philosophical way, I
could demonstrate my proficiency in using technical skills but I
would also be in imanent danger of failure. I already know this, as my
first thesis, written in 1991, was concerned with performativity and
aesthetics, using in part critical readings of Schelling, Hegel,
Benjamin, Bahktin and more. So I am forewarned and already armed.
There is another tool in philosophy requiring another type of
technical skill, that of refusal. Refusal should not be thought of as
a lazy way, in fact it appears to demand more rigorous application
and the above philosophical reading appears, now, as a lazy way
of dealing with discourses. Refusal should not be confused with
negation. These are two completely different things. Foucault's HS
Vol 1 Repressive hypothesis chapter contains one of the most concise
Nietzchean inspired refutals of negation in recent philosphical
writings. It is perhaps possible to say that Foucault's refusal of
Hegelian dialectics is one of the most interesting things in his
writings. It is this tool and technical skill of refusal that I am
attempting to sharpen, in part by making use of email lists, although
they are limited.
So, as you perhaps gather, there is far more to a simple
looking text, a sentence even, then may at first appear. This is one
of Foucault's most important arguments and essential to his
understanding of discourse. As Foucault argues in his writings on
discourse and power: to know is to be trapped. This still leaves open
questions of how to set and avoid traps and even escape a trap. The
ways out of Butler's imanent impossibility, perhaps.
Whatever you do; please do not be discouraged from reading Butler by
my position and arguments. In fact, quite the opposite, I am out to
force a confrontation with the texts. Butler is important in
undermining the commonsense understanding of gender and sexuality as
being natural or essentialist. My problem is simply that what Butler
does is not good enough. It contains an imanent failure. I would
suggest a queering of theory following the etymology of queer as a
diagonal cutting across. That is a trangression that refuses the
interminable dialectic of subversion.
with the best wishes
Chris Jones.