“It is not easy defending a notion of ethics, including such key notions as freedom and responsibility, in the face of their discursive appropriation. For if, according to those who value the decimation of social services, we are each responsible only for ourselves, and certainly not for others, and if responsibility is first and foremost a responsibility to become economically self-sufficient under conditions that undermine all prospects of self-sufficiency, then we are confronted by a contradiction that can easily drive one mad: we are morally pushed to become precisely the kind of subjects who are structurally foreclosed from realizing that norm.” — Judith Butler*
Judith Butler is giving two public lectures this week in Los Angeles.
JUDITH BUTLER—CRITIQUE, CRISIS, AND THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE, Wednesday, January 24, at 7:30 pm.
SILVER SCREEN THEATER, Pacific Design Center, 8687 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood.
criticalstudies.calarts.edu/aesthetics-and-politics
JUDITH BUTLER—THE MATERIALITY OF MOURNING IN THE WORK OF DORIS SALCEDO, Friday, January 26, at 8:30 pm.
REDCAT, Disney Hall, Music Center, downtown Los Angeles.
redcat.org/event/judith-butler-2018
news.berkeley.edu/2016/11/17/judith-butler-on-talking-politics
*Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 14.
Judith Butler. Image credit: UC Berkeley.
