Talk:Judith Butler

Old discussion

Can somebody please remove MOST of the "" in the Gender Troubles paragraph. This is stylistically poor. I'm not qualified to do it myself. Chuck

isn't Judith Butler at Berkeley? did she move? --ALC 03:36, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good point. Hyacinth 06:17, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I heard this as well, but I don't know where Butler is now. --Kanodin 19:49 18 Nov 2004 (PST)

"Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley" [1]. Hyacinth 05:57, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think someone went through wikipedia at some point setting up entries on people as advertising for the European Graduate School. While they have given Butler a professorship, she rarely actually teaches courses there, in common with most of their star professors. I'm going to edit this article accordingly. --XmarkX 09:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

does judith butler consider herself a post-feminist? has anyone asked her? i believe it is inappropriate to identify her as such.

I think I actually read an interview where she disagreed with this classification. I'll see if I can dig it up. -Seth Mahoney 05:55, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Seems like there should be more on this page...I was disappointed when I found it. -Zachary Furste

Can someone please go back to Chuck's remark about the poor writing of the Gender Trouble paragraph - he is completely right - I reread it now five times, really horrible (sorry!), very difficult to grasp its fairly simple meaning: 'This discourse exists only through repetitive signifying acts but obscures the contingency and temporality of its own genesis by producing sex as the appearance of a natural and unchanging “fact” which purports to express and therefore justify its constructions of gender and desire.' Also the 'concept of performativity' needs clarification - it is such obscurity that gives us a reputation for being academic phoneys Thank you, Dirk 23 June 2006

Jewish-American category

I added the article to Category:Jewish Americans based on her statement "I signed a petition framed in these terms, an 'Open Letter from American Jews', ..." found here. —Ashley Y 19:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this self-identification is OK for category membership, without going into exactly what the "Jewish" means in her case. This seems on better grounds than the neo-Nazi editors who go around adding "Jewish" to the first sentence of lots of articles (of people who may or may not be Jewish), as happened to the Butler article. Nonetheless, we need to get the fact evidenced in the article itself to obey WP:V ... but without assigning undue weight to it. Readers cannot be expected to read talk pages for support of facts (let alone archives and edit histories of talk pages). I'll try to put in something discrete. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:05, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Bad writing prize

Lulu, what do you mean the sentence would be POV and "non-admissable" without including the quote? The sentence is not POV: she DID win the award, negative though it is. It's verifiable, notable, and perfectly "admissable." And to select that one quote from the award's discussion of her career is POV in trying to do "damage control" on a perfectly factual statement about her winning the award. I have no problem with Butler, but she has long been criticized for writing overly convoluted prose which is intended, the critics suspect, to make her "sound smart" without actually saying much of substance. Martha Nussbaum wrote a much-read polemic against Butler on just these grounds. So the award is not just an interesting bit of info about her career, but also an example of a recurring critique made against Butler. The "smartest" quote is irrelevant and tendentious. Unless you explain why it is necessary, I'm going to remove it. Babajobu 16:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

A non-notable jab by a non-notable journal (basically the personal blog of its editor, Denis Dutton) is extremely borderline for including at all. But I think a marginal case can be made for the mention if it is presented in a relatively light-hearted way, as a bit of quirky "trivia" rather than as a serious biography matter. This quirky inclusion doesn't become so terribly heavy-handed if we include the balancing comment... which is, after all, included in P&L's own press release. But otherwise, it would be acceptable to remove the paragraph altogether.

FWIW, I agree that the sentence P&L found is a bit of a run-on. I'd certainly prefer to break it up into two or three simpler sentences. But conceptually, there is nothing particularly difficult or opaque about the claim it makes. Including an isolated run-on sentence just to be mean-spirited is highly unencyclopedic (and I simply won't allow it in the article). In the highly unlikely event Dutton becomes notable enough to merit a (substantative) WP article, should we search for the worst run-on sentence he ever wrote, and insist it be included in his article... on the rather specious grounds that it's "verifiable"?!

Nussbaum is at least notable herself. And her criticism of Butler, while a litte bit on the capricious side, at least says something about the actual academic work of Butler. Characterizing Nussbaum's jibe as "much-read" is certainly getting carried away, but that's just on the talk page. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Dutton's schtick

Curious what he's about, I found this (verifiable) information:

Simmons filed Strickland's suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. on October 12, and Dutton was served notice on October 16 — the day before Lingua Franca editor Hearst wrote his hurried letter to the MediaNews site. In it, Dutton and Academic Partners are accused of having "appropriated for themselves the fruits of Strickland's intellect and labor," and Dutton is called "a highly polished con–man" and "a cyber–predator of the most insidious sort."[2]

Maybe that needs to go in the Dutton article? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to inclusion of it in the Dutton article, though of course it would have to be noted that it was written by a lawyer who was representing a woman suing Dutton, which may or may not count as a reliable source. P&L isn't at all a blog for Dutton...if he has a blog, it's Arts & Letters Daily, which the Guardian named the best website on the internet and which has gotten a slew of other awards. The Bad Writing prize also gets a good bit of attention in mainstream press, including, again, in The Guardian. I'm not particularly interested in your declarations about what you will "simply not allow in this article." This article does not belong to you, nor does any Wikipedia article belong to individual. These things will be hashed out by consensus, to which your own opinion will contribute but will not determine. Regardless, unflattering info has just as much place in any biographical Wikipedia article as does flattering info, and unflattering info should not be offset by celebratory quotes cherry-picked to make the subject look good. And no one has suggested including the award-winning quote itself, just that she won the award. And it belongs in the article. Babajobu 19:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you look through the edit history, you'll see repeated insertion and removal of the "award winning" quote. In any case, information that is unflattering solely with the goal of being unflattering (as opposed to being substantative to debates around the thought of an academic) has absolutely no place in an academic bio. I've been fighting a bunch of brush fires that are just like this... someone finds some utterly non-notable criticism of an academic, and claims WP must include it because its "verifiable". But y'know what, even if you can find a source who says that "Butler is ugly and she smells bad", the mere existence of a URL doesn't mean it belongs in the article... nor likewise for any other academic, regardless of their looks and hygiene. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know who originally inserted it, but I certainly support its inclusion. How many have opposed it? And the bad Writing award was absolutely substantive: it was a pointed criticism of academics in the social sciences who use a bloated and convoluted writing style for no good reason. The Sokal hoax was in part a huge piss-take based on this. Such writing habits compromise (it is argued) their effectiveness as scholars, and allows them to cloak a lack of substance behind a gaudy veneer. This is in no way analagous to poor hygiene...though if an academic was known for exceptionally poor hygiene--as Sartre was legendary for his in his later years--there's no reason that shouldn't be included somewhere in their article. As is, the celebratory quote just looks like fluff added by a fan of Butler's to offset unflattering info--and that's unencyclopedic. Babajobu 20:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Every individual academic bio is not the place to rehash a general free-floating dislike of everything vaguely French-seeming. The celebratory quote was no doubt added to the Philosophy and Literature press release to make it seem less purely mean-spirited, but it was Philosophy and Literature that included it. Selectively extracting only the nastiest parts of an already mean-spirited (but still not notable) personal rant by Dutton only make it that much less encyclopedic.

I'll tell you what... if you can find one single article on an academic outside of post-whatever traditions that contains a similar sort of ad hominem rambling "criticism" then I'll... well, what I'll do is go to that article and edit out the unencyclopedic nonsense. But the issue is sort of moot, since those sort of ad hominem attacks just simply don't occur in articles about Anglo-American philosophers, nor about other generally middle-of-the-road (or rightwing) thinkers in other fields. The sentiment that "all vefifiable trivia must be included, but only if critical, only is applied to 'suspicious' academics like Butler". I don't have a lot of patience for hypocricy and editorializing in place of writing encyclopedic contents. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? You keep talking as though someone has argued for inclusion of some of the criticisms from the press release. No one is. The only person who wants to reproduce comments from the press release is you, who have a pet sentence from the press release you want in the article. And certainly no one has argued for inclusion of any ad hominem attacks...which the Bad Writing award itself is not. It's a criticism of her writing style. And--newsflash!--Butler is herself very much "Anglo-American," even if you think her style is "French-seeming." I don't think there is anything "suspicious" about Butler. It sounds like you have some sort of a chip on your shoulder from working on articles on other philosophers. I don't know what other articles you've worked on: what I do know is that Butler won a notable award, and it is unacceptable that you insist on making sure the article only includes information that corresponds to the high esteem in which you hold its subject. That's called POV warring...and I don't have a lot of patience for it in place of writing encyclopedic contents. Babajobu 20:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no, no, no.... Butler did not win a "notable award". One neo-con writer with a personal journal decided to snipe at her (in what is unambiguously simply an ad hominem attack). In contrast, the numerous actual awards she's won are generally not actually in the article (nor do they really need to be). You're certainly right that I've seen the same editorializing in a lot of articles, so I guess accumulated annoyance at the unencyclopedic content could be called a "chip" (your edits have certainly not been the worst of it... but they do lean slightly in the unencyclopedic direction).

Since you obviously cannot find any analogous pseudo-criticism on Wikipedia of thinkers who are not post-[modernist/structuralist/colonialist/etc]... how about showing me one single example of any similar pseudo-criticism anywhere else. There's a reason the EB, or Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or the like, don't include ad hominem attacks like these in their articles. It's not because they endorse some particular thinker, it's because they're trying to write encyclopedias! And yeah, I'm pretty pissed off at the editors who want to prevent WP from being the fine encyclopedia it can be (and mostly is) out of some undue emphasis backdoor POV-mongering. And indeed I am in a general way protective of academics... not just ones I agree with as such (though I confess I mostly edit articles about thinkers whose thought interests me; so I thereby have a certain sympathy with them, while certainly not agreeing with any one of them on everything). On the other hand, it's probably true similar pointless "verifiable" sniping occurs about actors, or musicians, or sports figures, whose articles I don't much care about editing... and only occassionally read. I don't want to claim it's a unique peril to academic articles. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't find any "analagous pseudo-criticism" of "thinkers who are not post-[various things]" because I didn't look. I'm not interested in fishing through other articles to find examples to satisfy you. Likewise, I wouldn't expect you to go trawling through other articles to find an example in which citation of a negative award is set off with an arbitrary positive quote to provide spurious "balance." The question is whether these specific sentences are appropriate in this article. Also, you're talking rubbish when you make comments about my edits running unencyclopedic: I've never even encountered you before, so far as I know. You are making an ad hominem attack to avoid addressing the actual issue we are discussing: however, you seem to have little idea what an "ad hominem attack" is...surprising for someone who is interested in philosophy. If you really think that criticizing a specific example of someone's writing as long-winded and relatively content-free amounts to an ad hominem attack, I suggest you read the ad hominem article. It'd be a good concept to get your mind around if you are going to work on Wikipedia. Thanks. Babajobu 21:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I've read, at least at a skimming level, the article of maybe a few dozen contemporary philosophers. I mention them only as a guide to what a proper academic bio looks like. The pattern I've found is that biographies of analytic-tradition philosophers NEVER (as in, not once, no single example) have pseudo-criticisms along the line of the "bad writing award"; in contrast, biographies of the French-sympathizing posties frequently are rife with blithe and vacuous repetitions of what some sophomore was told by his/her analytic-tradition philosophy professor about how awful those PoMos are. And no, it ain't because every thinker in the analytic tradition avoids all run-ons and has thoughts above reproach or criticism.

The unencyclopedic nonsense certainly does grate on me. The analytic-tradition biographies, in this respect, are done exactly right... FWIW, they also almost never have anything by way of a "criticism" section; because that's a matter for professional articles, not for an encyclopedia. And let me be clear again that it has nothing to do with whom I agree with. For example, I think, e.g. Rawls is pretty much full-of-shit (well, the whole school of overly individualistic ethical thought, nothing special about Rawls). But if I saw someone putting in a "criticism" section in his article that amounted to petty sniping, I would fight tooth-and-claw to keep it out of there (or I would if I actively watched the article).

In mentioning your edits, I refer only to those on this specific article. Still, I'd avoid lecturing me on how to edit WP, given I've been doing it for twice as long as you (though only 25% more edits... you've been busy over the last year... all power to you for your contributions). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 00:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, as per standard wikietiquette and practice, please do not use automated reverts for non-vandalism. Instead, do it manually and use a descriptive edit summary. Thanks. Babajobu 19:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

OK... fair enough. I should have given a proper edit summary... I just love those popups, so it's too easy to use them :-).

Looking around, there's quite a bit more to this Dutton story than I might have guessed. This article isn't the place for it... but maybe in some others. I fixed up the cite on Lingua Franca, for example. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Finally, why have you also restored the irrelevancy about who won runner-up? How is that relevant to Butler? Babajobu 19:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

It's important for readers to get a sense of the "award" itself. Since the award doesn't have its own WP article, when/if it's mentioned, we need to give a sense of what it's about. But actually, I can move the Bhabha thing to the footnote. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Personal Life?

Does she have one? If so, would like to know more. -- LKS 7/6/06

The sections on the individual books & npov

Is there any reason certain books are picked and others not? It seems capricious. Also, the language of the descriptions of the book should probably be more encyclopedic in origin, and not borrow so heavily from the author's own terms--this would be more neutral and accessible for a reader. They don't have to contain criticism--but they should contain what the works are really about. If that can be determined.

This thing about "certain books" is just silly. Editors presumably don't try to summarize books they haven't read, so those discussed in more detail are those about which some editor(s) are knowledgeable. Very few thinkers, and even fewer contemporary thinkers have completely uniform coverage of their works on WP. If you want discussion of a book not yet discussed, read it, understand it, and summarize it. Griping deosn't add anything. It might be possible though to add a placeholder blurb on any missing books: even just the dust jacket blurb on what a given work is about reminds editors that there is something that needs fleshing out, without being unencyclopedic until such time. LotLE×talk 16:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

To put Butler's arguments in something like "encyclopedic language" -- if by that you mean "common sense" or "everyday" language -- is antithetical to those arguments. I don't think what you ask is possible. The exegeses of Butler's works that actually appear in the article are both responsible and accurate to the complexity of her texts. While they do presuppose some background knowledge of 20th century continental philosophy, I think such background knowledge must necessarily go with any responsible interpretation of Butler's writings. I imagine the reason not all the books are covered here is because people simply haven't read all the books closely or recently enough to offer well-rounded, complete, and fair summaries. Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, then they don't belong in an encyclopedia. Even in Husserl's encyclopedia article on phenomenology, he takes great pains to explain what phenomenology is, what its role is, etc. What Butler does, as Nussbaum points out, is try at great pains to obfuscate meaning, because she doesn't believe 'meaning' exists, in the sense that most think of that--she likes to think she eschews traditional "definitions". But the problem with that, however, the encyclopedia's role is to explain the author's significance and the significance of his/her's ideas--the article at present does a fine job of the former, but fails in the latter because it is not presented in a fashion readable for the average educated person. I believe it also goes against "neutral point of view", which in the case of Butler, must mean a neutral language, i.e., not the language she is using. If it can be standardized, the individuals sections on the books, that's fine. But if they're not standardized, they constitute meaningless leftist propaganda points unreadable to the masses, and I will delete them. They shouldn't be 'accurate to the complexity of the texts', they should attempt to give a general sense of what the text is saying. The summaries people offered here are really offered in the spirit of Butler's language, and not in the effort to clarify her language for the average reader--it took no effort on their part, just a spouting off of Butler's jargon in a particular arrangement. Kmaguir1 02:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well you just unilaterally gutted all of our work on her books. What gives you this right to destroy the hard work of others because you deem it "unencyclopedic," especially if you admit you don't understand the first thing about "meaningless leftist propaganda"? I think we should revert to the former version and have a full discussion before we take out exegeses of Butler's most crucial ideas. Instead of completely deleting our work, tell us what you don't understand specifcially, and we can spend time to clarify it. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Agnaramasi is entirely correct here. If you want more description of other works, add it. Destrorying the summaries editors have provided is completely counter-productive. LotLE×talk 16:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, excuse me... NOW who's acting unilaterally! You deleted the sentence plus the explanation, which was not the last version, and was not what we were even talking about working towards. This action was not discussed or debated, and I'm reverting. You're biased on your page--you want to "get rid of categories" and yet join the Marxist group. This needs an edit that is NOT political, specifically from someone (unlike one of Butler's drones) who believes that humans can actually BE NOT political. -Kmaguir1 18:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, it is not that I do not understand. I never said that in my comments. I have taken time to understand Butler's ideas and have rejected them unequivocally. However, her ideas can still be, and should be, expressed here. However, they have to be expressed in a manner which is encyclopedic, which represents a neutral point of view, i.e., a point of view which does not treat her language as 'neutral' but instead highly specialized and thus often times unavailable to the general public, even the educated general public. It isn't the hard work of others--it's Butler's work, and it needs to be summarized, not merely reiterated or reformulated as summary. The summaries I left "gutted" dismissed Butler's jargon as paraphrased, and left the general ideas of the individual works--admittedly, for one of these books, that left just a sentence. The problem is that I understand, and that the content here did not enable anyone to understand anything of substance, only to be exposed to. Thus the summaries as I edited give the general direction in which Butler is moving, and do not attempt to go non-neutral, or unencyclopedic, but only to get to the heart of the point of her works as that can be determined--it's Butler who makes that difficult, and I understand her product, but her product cannot be granted the tacit endorsement of adopting her difficult language in the very summarizing of that product. - Kmaguir1 21:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, it has already been discussed here at length, and was decided that it is totally inappropriate to waste space in this article quoting out of context from the so-called "bad writing contest". It has nothing to do with Butler or her ideas, and is only relevent to the group of individuals who are involved in that culturally conservative publication. Secondly, tell me the sentences in the article you find "unencyclopedic" and I can try to unpack some of the language, or at least link the technical terms to articles where they are more fully explained. General statements about Butler's allegedly "unclear" or "meaningless" language and your claims about what the "average educated person" (yourself?) understands do not get us anywhere. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The bad writing contest excerpt is integral for a hint of criticism of Butler, namely Nussbaum's criticism, that she is more interested in spouting her jargon than she is in actually expressing anything meaningful. Put it out on the pages to see if readers feel that that criticism is valid, and if she merited the award. Let's see if readers think it is bad writing. As it is, almost everyone in the world would disagree with Butler, many who know of her DO disagree with her, but precious little space is given to a fair and honest exposition of what she's up to. I was going to quote her from UNDOING GENDER in which she says that "sex outside of marriage may indeed open us up to a new idea of community" (paraphrased). That's controversial, controversial statements need to be objectively presented, with no subjective bias, the same subjective bias, ironically, Ms. Butler would argue, is unavoidable. Let people judge it objectively.

On the other matter, every sentence I deleted or modified I considered to be unencyclopedic, unexplained, irrelevant, or immaterial in some manner which rendered the section better off without it. It does not need to be expanded, i.e. conflated. It needs to be shrunk to get the main idea Butler has expressed, and that's it--anything else is merely iterating her arguments for her contentions, which are hers, not this encyclopedia's. Get a few basic ideas of the books out there, and leave it at that. - Kmaguir1 23:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Three points in response: (1) You haven't even attempted to make a case why specific parts of the article are "unencyclopedic" as you allege. Just because you disagree with Butler's ideas, for whatever reason, doesn't mean that she is not an influential critical theorist and philosopher, and that it is not appropriate for exegeses of her most crucial ideas be included in the article here. You obviously don't like Butler's politics and want to compromise any attempt to make her ideas accessible to inquiring wikipedia readers beyond superficial generalizations (the gutted remains of the article after your vandalism). Tell what specific sentences are problematic for you, and I will fix them or offer more complete defense of what they are saying. I have read the majority of Butler's books as well as many thinkers she cites and I find this article, though still a work in progress, quite adequate to those texts it addresses. 2) It is completely inappropriate to include an out of context quotation form a culturally-conservative publication biased against Butler's political project in this article to "allow the reader to judge for herself". Nussbaum's critique of Butler is not relevent to Butler herself or her work. Butler doesn't even respond to it -- they are from completely different philoshical traditions and discourses. I also want to point out that if you actually read Nussbaum's so-called critique of Butler, you will find that her supposedly "clearer" more "plain language" paraphrase of the sentence in question displays Nussbaum's own misunderstanding of what Butler meant by that sentence (shift from Marxian-Althusserrian to Gramsciian (hegemony) theories of society), which contrary to your and your conservative allies' contention, is not an example of "obviously bad writing". In short, I think the short mention of the dubious contest is already more than enough, and I am reverting to that previous version. (3) Why did you add "lesbian". I'm not sure Butler has ever directly assumed that identity in her writing, nor does she accept identities unproblematically. Much of work is actually a critique of identity. Until you find compelling evidence for its inclusion, I am removing "lesbian". --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

But they're not "exegetical"! That's the point! Exegesis would be great--they're spouting off the same jargon, and that's not exegesis. Exegesis of the Bible is supposed to give me the point of a certain passage. Exegesis of Butler's work should do the same--that's why I tried to narrow down the summaries to the main points of the books. Whether I am conservative or not is not up for debate, and is not relevant to my criticism. Conservatives can be bad writers, so can liberals, so can Marxists. I'm not saying Butler is a bad writer, merely that she won such a contest, and that that information is encyclopedic in that it relates a common criticism that her writing is bad--whether or not I believe that; this is irrelevant. These common criticisms are always necessary, specifically with philosophers whose views and or writing styles remain vastly unknown from a community which would unequivocally reject them if exposed to them. There's a section in the Foucault article on criticism, on almost every continental philosopher of the 20th century. I am also adding back the 'lesbian' as I provide evidence for it. -Kmaguir1 19:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, I have three responses. (1) About naming Butler a lesbian. I'm worried that the website you cite may not be credible. I visited it and fail to see why it would be authoritative in any way, and not merely the kind of unreflexive speculation about assumed identities that Butler would herself not condone. I think the only evidence which would justify the inclusion of "lesbian" in this article, especially in view of Butler's own critique of identity, would to find an ocurrence in her own writing or interviews of Butler naming herself with that word explicitly. Until you offer such evidence, I am removing "lesbian." (2) About your allegation that the article is "unexegetical": you still are not pointing to specific parts of the article's text which you deem too close to Butler's own "jargon," as you call it. Until you tell me exactly what instance of language use is troubling for you, I cannot try to help you. (3) About your inclusion again of the sentence for which she won the dubious "bad writing" contest. I still do not think that inclusion of the sentence itself is either appropriate for this article or fair. You keep arguing that "average people" should be able to read the sentence for themselves so they can judge for themselves how "obviously bad" Butler's writing is. Two points in response here. (a) The point of a Wikipedia article is not to assemble polemical quotations from significant thinkers, reduce those thinkers to those quotations, and then offer them up neatly packaged for easy evaluation by your so-called "average person" -- the same fantasy person who you seem to think would so unequivocaly reject Butler's ideas if given the chance to read that one sentence you so persistently want included. Your argument on that basis for the sentence's inclusion is therefore invalid. (b) It is totally unfair to Butler's ideas to take a single setence out of context from her larger text, and parade it around as an example of her "obviously bad writing." It is an unfair misrepresentation of the textual place of that sentence in her work, and it does nothing to enhance this article's goal of providing solid exegesis of Butler's ideas; it just misrepresents those important ideas and contributes nothing towards the main purpose of an article like this one. I, hopefully for the final time, will therefore revert to the previous version. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

More evidence on the lesbian comment. Although your contention that her assertion she's a lesbian has to be there for us to "call" her one is LUDICROUS, such assertions I have found:

"I became a lesbian at the age of fourteen. And I didn't know anything about politics. I became a lesbian as I wanted somebody very deeply." http://www.lolapress.org/elec2/artenglish/butl_e.htm

"Lesbians make themselves into a more frail political community by insisting on the radical irreducibility of their desire. I don't think any of us have irreducibly distinct desires." http://www.egs.edu/faculty/butler-resources.html

So please leave at least that unmolested. I will go on to address your other problems as soon as I reedit the page.-Kmaguir1 20:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

No, especially for Butler, it is absolutely the case we need her verified self-identification. Identity in relation to Butler's theories is not unproblematical. Just because someone might sleep with others of the "same sex" does not mean they maintain a certain identity.

Read the interview she gave where she says "I became a lesbian at the age of fourteen... I became a lesbian as I wanted..." That is her verified self-identification!!! She calls HERSELF a lesbian! -Kmaguir1 20:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what agnaramasi wanted, and there it is! -Kmaguir1 21:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

You added the quotation of the so-called "bad sentence" again -- this time without even attempting to justify it on this page in light of my above case against its inclusion. Until such time that others weigh in here and a broader consensus is reached against its inclusion, I won't bother getting rid of it again (because you'll just change it back), and I have added a subsequent paragraph offering an interpretation of the sentence in question other than as "obviously bad". It expalins what Butler might mean (contrary to your claim she purposely "obfuscates meaning") by the sentence and how the sentence can be read to connect with larger context of Butler's theories. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not true. I justified it by adding "out of context" leading in to the quote, which addresses your legitimate concern about it been taken as such. Thus, I deleted your "explanation", which really explains nothing, and kept my "out of context" to adequately address your concern. I think the general point is what Nussbaum calls "willful obscurity" applies to that sentence in or out of context, and thus, the general point of the difficulty of finding meaning in it (again, meaning in language, Butler would disapprove!) is apparent regardless of context.

Several points in response (1) You cannot unilaterally delete others' work. Wikipedia operates on consensus, especially in NPOV disputes like this one. (2) The fact that the sentence is taken out of context was not my ONLY concern above. My main argument is that the sentence by itself does not serve to advance the goal of the article to provide solid exegeses of Butler's ideas. Nor does it do anything to further clarify the "willfull obscuratanism" charge, especially in light of the alternative and meaningful interpretations of the sentence that are possible (and which I demonstrated). To claim that the sentence is "obviously meaningless" is just closed-minded ignorance and embarrassingly parades your's (and Nussbaum's) lack of basic exposure to developments in 20th century Marxism. Before you make any more claims about ideas you obviously have made no effort to read up on, I suggest consulting the Althusser, Gramsci, and Birmingham School Wikipedia articles. (3) If you look above on this very talk page, there was a dispute about whether to add the setence in question and it was decided NOT to. There is no compelling reason to reopen this debate. On the basis that this dispute has ALREADY been resolved by consensus, as per Wikipedia NPOV dispute policy, I am going to revert back to a version without the sentence. You cannot be the only one advocating for this change. (4) If you continue to unilaterally add things to the article that were ommitted by consensus and remove things from the article that were written by other users, arguably much more well-versed in Butler's works than you, we will have to resolve this dispute more formally. At this stage your unilateral edits -- against all Wikipedia etiquette and policies -- are verging on vandalism. (5) Usually, and this is another Wikipedia guideline, if you are going to tag an article with disputed neutrality, you are expected to point to the specific parts of the text you think are POV. I have repeatedly asked you to do so and you have not. Until you do so I am removing the tag. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

1) I am not unilaterally doing anything. I made an edit, you changed it. We both feel strongly about what we've put up. If you want consensus, open up the debate. No one is commenting as it is. Get your friends to say their piece, and there you go... 2) The primary goal of the article is to explain who Judith Butler is, why she is important, and some basic ideas she puts forth. A secondary goal could' be exegesis of her works. But that's not what's offered here--it is just a spouting off of her ideas, not an explanation of them or of great meaning coming from them. This again is difficult to do, because she eschews meaning. In the absence of an exegesis, part of which should demand departing from her language as much as she wants to departs from ours, my position is that my limited edit version of the sections of works (which I have NOT re-added after the original posting) serves the purposes of brevity and clarity with greater precision and consistency. Whatever is the case, there must be room for criticism of Judith Butler (see criticism of Michel Foucault). So I will add soon after this criticisms from Nussbaum or whatever. Your best argument is that winning that award is not criticism, or is not valid criticism--but I think that's a doubtful stance. I read the above arguments about inclusion of the quote. I don't think consensus was built adequately or comprehensively, and the objection of others, "on my side", showed significant dissent. But nevertheless, I will use some fair use selections from Nussbaum's article in a new criticism section to be built, if that fits you well. You cannot have an article on Judith Butler that spouts off her original borrowed philosophy in her original language and then ALSO expect that there not be criticisms of it. That's why I put the NPOV tag on the page, because the two of these in conjunction, submitting to Butler's language as gospel in lengthy spouting off on her points (would that she had some!), AND the lack of any described criticism of her language or of her "points" themselves, these two working together, makes the article skewed. 3)I'm not vandalizing anything, and you know that. I'm trying to make the article dually both more balanced and more accessible. -Kmaguir1 21:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

First, I want to respond to your claim (which is also Nussbaum's main criticism) that Butler somehow "echews" or "obfuscates" meaning. The claim is that Butler's use of technical poststructuralist, post-marxist language and the language of continental philosophy results in "meaningless" text. Such a "critique" comes from outside of Butler's own discourse from Anglo-American analytic philosophers and political conservatives. It rests on a the fundamental claim that her language use is "impossible to understand" and therefore irresponsibile. What is really underpinning these critiques is a complete reluctance on the part of Butler's detractors to seriously engage with the intellectual traditions of Marxism, French Feminism, and continental philosophy Butler is working within. Even a basic familiarity with these traditions yields rich readings of Butler's texts, an wealth of interpretive possibilities I tried to demonstrate partly in my reasonable and just interpretation of the "bad sentence" (which you deleted with characteristic unilaterality). For this reason, so long as you insist on including the out of context sentence (announcing it as such is not sufficient to restore its context), I will restore my interpretation which attempts to show possibilities for understanding the "bad sentence" as meaningful. As long as the sentence is included with the opinion of its supposed meaningless and "badness", there is no possible case you can make against including an alternative interpretation of that sentence as meaningful while maintaining NPOV.

Nussbaum's "critique" therefore rests on a systematic (unfair and irresponsible) refusal to confront Butler in her own language and on her own terms. For example, look at her paraphrase of Butler's infamous "bad sentence." She actually gets the distinction Butler was getting at and I elucidated in my interpretation backwards! How do you respond to someone claiming your writing is meaningless when they refuse to learn your language? If we reject Nussbaum as unfair to Butler because it relies on a refusal to discuss Butler's own ideas with her seriously, that is not to say that Butler sets herself up using "difficult language" to escape any possible critique or call to accountability. There are many objections one can make to her ideas within the very conceptual landscapes and languages she herself navigates. So if you are preparing a section on critiques of Butler, I suggest you expand your scope beyond Nussbaum and Dutton, to include for example, Butler's direct debates with Slavoj Zizek and (even more significantly) opposition within American feminism to Butler's anti-essentialism. Any "criticism" section to be either fair or complete certainly must not exclude Butler's detractors within her own field. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Nussbaum's critique was published, it is seen by many as valid, but has its detractors. That is not my concern. Nussbaum's objections and the sentence's presence are two separate issues. And yes, a more expansive criticism section could be written, the Butler/Benhabib debates, etc. I don't know enough about this, and I hardly know anyone else who cares enough about it who isn't a fan of Butler who would write such a criticism. This criticism however is relevant and pointed. And I don't like the way you reattached my separate sections. In my version, one clearly deals with her style and politics as one section and criticism of her on another. I am dissatisfied with the current outcome for the follow reasons: 1) the language of the descriptions of the individual works implies tacit endorsement as well as contains too much "stuff" that can't be understood and isn't relevant to the general points of the book, 2) there should be a criticism section separate from that of the style and politics section, 3) any explanation as to a purported Nussbaum misunderstanding does not belong here--it is merely a criticism, good or bad, but academic in nature, 4) the double presence of the sentence she won for AND your explanation of it consistutes clear bias. I will rectify all of these now in full, however, I will fix #4 specifically by deleting your explanation of the sentence she won. I have no objection to it staying there, other than to say, I will keep the NPOV on if it does stay there. As for the change of #1 that I refrained from going back to, you have shown me no effort on the page to remedy my concerns reflected in the edit I post now. -Kmaguir1 06:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Just because you claim not to understand what I and others regard as excellent exegetical work on Butler's ideas, does not give you the right to remove that work from the article. You say that the result of your "edit" is Butler's "basic points"? Have you even read her books closely? Have you seriously studied them? How would you know what she's talking about if you refuse to even concede that her writing has meaning??? I am restoring the previous versions for all the book sections because there is no way that you should be able to singlehandedly destroy the collective work of this community because you think it is biased -- even though after I have repeatedly asked you to tell me specifically what parts you have a problem with, you won't discuss the specific parts of our text with which you have problems. We can improve this article only by WORKING TOGETHER, not by unilaterally destroying each other's contributions. I will address your other changes, like your removal of my neutral alternative interpretation of the allegedly "bad" and meaningless sentence, later. But for now restoring the content of this article's treatment of Butler's major ideas is the priority.

PS this kind of radical destruction of the community's work DOES constitute vandalism and is in BAD FAITH. We need other people to enter this discussion because you are not respecting Wiki conventions and etiquette.

Also -- the "bad" writing quotation needs to be referenced to the work from which it was taken. And there is no stylistic reason for it to be in bold. --Agnaramasi 14:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Now, about the "bad writing" setnence. I don't know how you can argue that my inclusion of an altnernative interpretation of the out of context sentence constitutes bias. In fact, it seems clear to me (as I explained in my arguments above) the only way to preserve NPOV if you insist on including the sentence in question would be to provide it with context by interpreting it and placing it in relation to Butler's ideas as they are presented elsewhere in the article. I am against inclusion of the sentence in the first place, as I don't think it adds to the article's purpose of elucidating the significance of Butler and her ideas. Until such time that there is broader consensus on its inappropriateness, the only way to preserve NPOV while including the sentence is by restoring my alternative interpretation. You can't quote from Butler out of context, claim that the passage is meaningless and thus proves to the "average reader" that Butler is a "bad writer" while maintaining NPOV. Obviously, if alternative interpretations of the sentence as meaninful are possible they must be included to ensure that the requisite diversity of points of view are included. Therefore, I am restoring my alternative interpretation to establish provisional NPOV in your new "criticisms" section.--Agnaramasi 15:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that I toned the paragraph down slightly. --Agnaramasi 15:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The major error you make is saying that, and I quote, "the article's purpose [is] elucidating the significance of Butler and her ideas". No, no, no. The purpose of the article is to simply state who Butler is, what her ideas are and how they are relevant to an average, educated reader. That's what an encyclopedia entry does, it explains, but it does not 'elucidate the significance'. Leave that for an academic journal. Vandalism, again, is not what this constitutes. You can enter people into the discussion, but the problem with that is again, you're getting the 1% of the population who cares about Butler's ideas, either as gospel, or as extremely destructive, but usually, as gospel, as the ones who would think that they would be extremely destructive (the other 99%) have probably not read her works--not that I could blame them. We need to find a way to resolve the issue surrounding the sections on the individual books, because you have not done what you said you would do, which is to clarify them for an educated encyclopedia reader with little or no background in not just continental philosophy but philosophy in general. That's what virtually ALL the other encyclopedia articles about philosophers accomplish, even the one on Foucault. Since you have insisted on leaving a response to the Bad Writing Contest 'criticism', if it constitutes that, I have changed the title of the newly created section to Criticism and Response, and also, as I said I would, put up the NPOV, because I do believe response to a widely publicized context, response which goes even DEEPER into specifics which no one would be able to understand just happening upon the encyclopedia, is inappropriate, and constitutes caving in to trying to, as Nussbaum points out, find meaning, when really, even according to Butler, meaning of the sort an average encyclopedia reader would hope to find, is impossible. -Kmaguir1 17:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Sectioning and trivia

I see the long discussion above between two editors. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to follow since it lacks any indentation to indicate threads, has no subsections, and many comments lack signatures. Please, please remedy this in future comments.

In general, I have several comments:

1. The solution to uneven coverage of books calls for expansion of discussion, not deletion of that explanation that exists
2. There seems to be an argument without any genuine distinction about whether this article is supposed to "inform a general reader" vs. "explicate Butler's ideas". I have no idea what the difference between those two things is, both are perfectly reasonable characterizations of the goal of an academic bio. There's definitely a danger of excessive arcana and field-specificity in the language used. On the other hand, an article shouldn't try to "dumb down" discussion of complex thinkers into crude caricatures of what they actually do. Both poles should be avoided, but neither rhetorical extreme does anything useful. FWIW, not every article can be understood by every reader: A pretty small subset of WP readers will ever be able to understand the article on the Shimura–Taniyama theorem... and that's exactly how things should be.
3. There's some odd debate about whether Butler is a lesbian. If this is just about the "lesbian writers" category, leave the damn thing. Of course she's a lesbian, at a first level of approximation. (I've met her a few times, and she's hardly in the closet or anything). But if there had been some belabored original research claim in the article earlier regarding the matter, that should be omitted: Whatever a philosopher might happen to do in their bedroom has nothing much to do with the books they write, not even in the case of Butler who often addresses issues of sex and gender. Followup: I just noticed that the foolishness was in the lead: Yuck! Shall we go call, say John Rawls, a "prominent heterosexual political thinker"?! Who did this awful crap?!
4. The whole "bad writing" slander thing was way too belabored already. Adding a "defense" of Butler is gratuitous. Of course anyone familiar with post-structuralism perfectly well understands the meaning of Butler's sentence. Had I been her editor, I might have wanted it broken into a couple sentences to avoid the run-on, but it's hardly any paradigm of especially bad writing. Neither is the sentence particularly meaningful to people who never worked in the same field as Butler. Just like the fact that not a lot of non-mathematicians are going to have much luck making sense of: The Jacobian of the modular curve can (up to isogeny) be written as a product of irreducible abelian varieties, corresponding to Hecke eigenforms of weight 2. Big fucking deal, non-experts don't always understand technical areas they don't work in!

LotLE×talk 18:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Do we need page protection here? -Kmaguir1 18:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I took some effort to look through the edit history since you joined, Kmaguir1 (I had taken this article off my watchlist some months back, so hadn't followed it). It looks really quite alarmingly bad on your part. Apart from repeatedly inserting that utterly idiotic "lesbian" adjective into the lead sentence (idiotic because irrelevant and unencyclopedic for lead sentence), you also repeatedly (and seemingly randomly) deleted wide swatches of relatively good description of Butler's thought. It's hard to imagine any good intention here, since it looks like purely malicious disruption of the article. Take this as a warning: drop the nonsense this very moment. LotLE×talk 18:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Your one liner in reverting back with modifications was not enough of a justification at ALL for the numerous distinct criticisms Nussbaum enters against Butler. So I'm reverting unless you tell me how any or all of what I wrote was unencyclopedic or irrelevant to criticism of Butler. And why are you warning me? What are you going to do if I continue to edit the article for the better based on consultation with fellow group members and a desire to see a more critically engaged, vibrant piece of work? -Kmaguir1 21:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

You'll wind up blocked if you continue to disrupt this article. Don't do it! LotLE×talk 21:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

And with what justification will you block me? I haven't vandalized by anyone's standards (mocked the subject, or cleared out the article), which I would never do, as I only want people to have an honest sense of what this woman really believes and how she writes. I have just as much a right to edit this page as you. I don't think the page conforms to a neutral point of view as it is. I haven't received this sort of treatment on any other page when adding criticism and fair truth to the philosophers' biographies or philosophical work. This is just ridiculous! -Kmaguir1 21:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Balancing books

On the original complaint about the unevenness of the sections on the books: I think the sections on Gender Trouble and Giving an Account of Oneself are generally fine. The section on Excitable Speech is a bit long, and could probably be more concise. This, unfortunately, is a book I haven't yet read closely or completely enough to be confortable taking that on. I think the section on Bodies that Matter ought to be expanded, especially in its relation to Gender Trouble, but again I don't feel comfortable right now doing that myself. Two of her most significant books that are notably missing are The Psychic Life of Power and Undoing Gender; it would be great if someone familiar with those texts could do up a few short paragraphs on them.--Agnaramasi 19:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree on all these points. The Excitable Speech description is too long, and sort of digresses into minor concerns. And obviously, Bodies that Matter needs expansion (maybe I can get to that), but probably not this week. Some of the rest could probably be made slightly more concise, and also slightly more accessible to non-technical readers. Unfortunately, I've only skimmed Psychic Life and Undoing Gender (can you tell when I finished my Ph.D. in this stuff :-)). Maybe someone can at least put in a one-sentence blurb on each of the missing books, even if only paraphrased from the publisher blurbs on them, or from some review. LotLE×talk 19:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Objection to inclusion

I further object to the presence of this article in the Philosophy Wikiproject, as I dispute that she actually is a philosopher, as does Nussbaum. How would one go about detaching this article from that project? -Kmaguir1 21:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Just put on your red shoes, click your heals three times, and repeat "there's no place like home." LotLE×talk 21:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

And what does this mean? -Kmaguir1 21:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)