Precarious, Performative, Playful, Potential...Perspectives!

chelseam and I listened to this song all the time last year. It was only tonight, though, when we revisited the video, that we realized that Barad could totally jam to this! Enjoy-- and remember, "we are all connected." 

I want to be clear in this post that I am only speaking for myself, and that I am not attempting to invallidate anyone else's thoughts or feelings about last night's discussion of Eve Ensler's piece.

That said, it was a very triggering discussion for me, which came on the heels of dealing with a triggering text in another class. 

I've been dreading that sort of thing since the beginning of the semester, even though I assumed that it was inevitable that I would encounter some texts and some discussions which would recall past traumas and elicit a very emotional reaction. I expected that when this happened, I would become quieter and would feel even less like I belonged in the class as that is how I've experienced triggering materials in other classes.

What surprised me was that last night's call for litanies and group discussions actually compelled me to be louder and more assertive. 

I thought some of you might be interested in the most recent issue of On Campus with Women published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) that focuses Higher Education and Global Gender Equity.  Articles include:  "Nelly Stromquist of the University o

Anne and I had designed tonight's class intending to diffract theory and action and to explore how Butler, Barad, Humbach and Welsh might inform and strengthen our work for social justice.  However, our lesson plan (or apparatus in Barad's term) revealed a different dimension of this phenomenon.  The political responses you shared at the end of class addressed (as we had hoped) important problems of gender and sexuality and were theoretically informed, but what struck me was their raw emotional power.  I had not anticipated this irruption of emotion, for theory often presents itself as abstract, rational, distant and can be interrogated using just our intellect.  What generated this more visceral response?  Unquestionably, rape is a charged, emotional, non-abstract experience for too many people.  Yet, we can write papers about rape culture, post responses on Serendip, critique representations in the media.  But, perhaps those formats don't engage us the same way as what what we asked you to do tonight?  In some ways, academic papers don't ask students to "appear" as whole people, but let them just engage intellectually.  Perhaps, academic papers and postings on Serendip are not really public, not really private, but exist in some interstitial zone?  I also wonder how much the reading of Ensler's litany and the power of repetition, the speaking out of the violations, the rhythm of her words resonate with our bodies and evoke a more embodied response?  I remember the first time I went to a display of the AIDS quilt an

Tonight at Bryn Mawr College, Judith Butler, in her second lecture of the Flexner Lecture series, responded to Hannah Arendt’s assertion that action and speech create a political space between participants; such spaces are not constituted by individuals, but rather by the interactions between many of them. The body provides the means to see one’s own perspective but also displaces the singular perspective because bodies do not act alone; rather, action (and meaning) emerges from the “between.” We appear to others in ways that we do not know, and are politically constituted by perspectives unbeknownst to us. Butler responded by acknowledging the truth in Arendt’s conception of political space, but also that material supports are necessary for action. In the spirit of striving to be interdisciplinary, I found myself relating Arendt and Butler’s ideas about political space to Incan astronomy. As I learned upon visiting Inca ruins in Cusco, Peru during my semester abroad last spring, our tour guide taught us that the Inca looked for constellations not by imagining shapes around the stars, as the Greeks did, but rather by seeing the black space between the stars. The pinpoints of light acted as the “supports,” but the image could not be seen through just one single star. Rather, through the existence and placement of many individual stars, the Inca saw meaningful images between them.

Barad’s quantum entanglement, diffracted through Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.

“Billy Pilgrim says that the Universe does not look like a lot of bright little dots to the creatures from Tralfamadore.  The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti.  And Tralfamadorieans don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, either.  The see them as great millipedes—‘with babies’ legs at one end and old people’s legs at the other,’ says Billy Pilgrim.”

            (Slaughterhouse Five, 110)

Humbach's argument for the distinction between the justice of/for rights and the justice of right relationships has me thinking a lot about next Butler lecture, titled Gender and its Allies: Performativity in Precarity. I've noticed in the posts throughout last week and this weekend that many of my classmates are similarly struggling with Anne's question of * how is all this related to gender studies? I think after reading Humbach I better understand Judith Butler's comments on Gay Marraige, Gays in the Military and (although she didn't comment on this one) Gays adopting.

I went into both lectures of the previous week with mixed feelings. I was excited to be in the presence of “rockstars” in the gender world, but I was a bit worried because I have found that both Judith Butler and Karen Barard’s work tend to go over my head. I was quite pleased to find myself following along. I found Karen to be much easier to follow fully, which shocked me because I find her writing to be too phsyics-y for me, and yet, I understood her discussion of spacetime. As for with Judith, I followed her less. I enjoyed the artful construct of her sentences, even if I couldn’t always detect the meaning of them. I did, however, really enjoy her answer to the audience member who asked about gay people’s right to adopt. I felt that her response acknowledged both her professional and personal feelings on the subject and that it was tactfully delivered. I am looking forward to hearing her speak again on Monday. 

In completing the readings for next class I was left with many questions. The article brought up great points about intra-action, right relationships, accountability, action, and mourning. How does it all fit in with gender and sexuality? Some connections I can see, others I am struggling more with.

From what we read of Humbach, I was somewhat puzzled by the example with Mr. Able, Baker, and Charles (11). I understand that Able represents a right relationship and that Charles is not, but how Baker is described as imitating a right relationship confuses me. Is it that he himself considered stealing the camera the problem, or would just recognizing the fact that it could be stolen be a problem? If you see a car door left open, expensive stereo equipment inside in a bad part of town and think to yourself that someone might or could steal it put you in a “wrong” relationship? I’m not sure of the line on this one…

 In addition, does the fact that someone can and does “act most viciously” mean that all of their relationships are wrong relationships (13)? I don’t think so- even murderers care about friends and family, and their wrong relationships with their victims does not invalidate the right relationships that they have had in their lives. Can “seeming” even count as a right relationship? How can you tell if a relationship is right or if it only seems to be?