5 stars for content, 3 stars for accessibility of the writing. This review is for a re-reading of the text, which was even better the second time. This is crucial to the project of self-revision that she seems to enact with this text. “Theater” appears in the Notes as shorthand for the organizing power of the state apparatus, somehow obliquely performing, too, as an antithesis to the assembly “not circumscribed in advance” by design or identity (p. 66). Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? Such assemblies might be read back into these provocative and remarkable Notes, recovering the auxiliary senses of the theatrical, which, sometimes at least, enact the principle Butler’s assemblies seek to realize, the interdependent equality of livable life. This turned out to be one of my favourite Butler books. For an author whose main contribution has always been to add complexity to that which most take for granted, the work presented in this book comes accross as overly simplistic and taking too much for granted. Discussing the corporeal body and the way it is used to perform the right to have rights, Butler argues, referencing Arendt, that ‘the right to have rights is one that depends on no existing particular political organization for its legitimacy’, and discusses the way that power may interact with the body when it resists.

72 NOTES TOWARD A PERFORMATIVE THEORY OF ASSEMBLY them to address the crowd, the military instrument itselfbecomes a support or platform for a nonmilitary resistance, ifnot a resistance to the military itself; at such moments, the material environment is actively reconfigured and refunctioned, to use the Brechtian term. Book Description: A Times Higher Education Book of the Week Judith Butler elucidates the dynamics of public assembly under prevailing economic and political conditions, analyzing what they signify and how. While I have many disagreements that stem from some of Butler's poststructuralist theoretical commitments, I admire her increasing lucidity and the force of her theoretical vision. This may be my favorite of her works. The read benefits from Butler's increasingly clear prose style.

Indeed, she states that the book’s thesis is ‘that acting in concert can be an embodied form of calling into question the inchoate and powerful dimensions of reigning notions of the political’. More than simply speech, Butler discusses the assembly of the physical body as a form of embodied expression. 1631 Words7 Pages. Her language is at its most clear and easy to understand. You can write a book review and share your experiences. Through film, ‘the people’ in a society are vocal and visual, performing within conditions leading to situations dictated by contemporary society. The file will be sent to your email address. Honestly, my first Butler. Refresh and try again. Response paper for class ***** In this response, I aim to think through the keyword “appear” (and two other related keywords, briefly) in Judith Butler’s Notes Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly. Trotzdem ist Judith Butler immer eine Lektüre wert! Book review on: Notes toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Judith Butler. More than simply speech, Butler discusses the assembly of the physical body as a form of embodied expression. The file will be sent to your Kindle account. In Butler’s vision, the assembly is constituted by a “new ‘between’ of bodies,” a sociality “never reducible to one’s own perspective,” always already exceeding the unconnected and unencumbered individual. How do they manifest themselves in transient, concerted actions, taking forms of solidarity in unforeseeable, “uneasy and unpredictable alliances in the struggle for social, political, and economic justice” (p. 70)? In Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Judith Butler draws upon her influential theorisations of performativity and precarity to examine the politics of public assembly, discussing such themes as the crucial bodily component to acting in concert as well as the role of media.

Judith Butler ist für mich eine der wichtigsten zeitgenössischen PhilosophInnen und EthikerInnen! Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Very much recommended.