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casparb's review against another edition
3.0
Started reading and then slotted into Deleuze and so on but here we are. Three sections that are distinct enough that I want to call them essays though they follow one another. The text is a kind of deconstructive reading of Antigone that inspects the State/Kinship relation and blurs those boundaries as we might expect. It's not bad, though limited by the fact of staying with the one text, and I feel Derrida has done this better in Force of Law and Of Grammatology. Perhaps a 3.5?
Section one was strong and also I feel stuck closest to the text of the three. Nice analysis, as we'd expect from JB of the refractive-mutual disturbances of categorical gender in the text.
Second essay kind of ran out of steam for me. This is where JB took two readings of Antigone - Hegel's and Lacan's and had a go at them. Very strange for me, Deleuze was actually quite appreciative (uncharacteristically!) of Hegel in ATP so I wondered where I was when she was having a go at him. Anyway, if I remember rightly, Hegel on Antigone is a very brief section in the Phenomenology, and apparently he also has a look at her in PoR. I wondered if it was really fair to hack at this when Hegel wasn't primarily interested in what Sophocles thought about these things but so it goes. JB's reading of Lacan is (in)famously kind of rocky, and it did feel a bit unsteady here. His point about Antigone's love reaching for the asymbolic, desperate to evade the regulative procedures of the symbolic was beautiful and I feel like was kind of underserved in this text.
Third essay was broader - more Antigone-based theory of kinship as related to contemporary structures, particularly pertaining to gay marriage. Nice. Nothing too remarkable for her, a strong essay though not one altogether concerned with the play.
Good stuff anyway. I'll be returning to it with closer looks at Antigone.
Section one was strong and also I feel stuck closest to the text of the three. Nice analysis, as we'd expect from JB of the refractive-mutual disturbances of categorical gender in the text.
Second essay kind of ran out of steam for me. This is where JB took two readings of Antigone - Hegel's and Lacan's and had a go at them. Very strange for me, Deleuze was actually quite appreciative (uncharacteristically!) of Hegel in ATP so I wondered where I was when she was having a go at him. Anyway, if I remember rightly, Hegel on Antigone is a very brief section in the Phenomenology, and apparently he also has a look at her in PoR. I wondered if it was really fair to hack at this when Hegel wasn't primarily interested in what Sophocles thought about these things but so it goes. JB's reading of Lacan is (in)famously kind of rocky, and it did feel a bit unsteady here. His point about Antigone's love reaching for the asymbolic, desperate to evade the regulative procedures of the symbolic was beautiful and I feel like was kind of underserved in this text.
Third essay was broader - more Antigone-based theory of kinship as related to contemporary structures, particularly pertaining to gay marriage. Nice. Nothing too remarkable for her, a strong essay though not one altogether concerned with the play.
Good stuff anyway. I'll be returning to it with closer looks at Antigone.
ralowe's review against another edition
5.0
incredibly deep and multidimensional in its thought, just like georg wilhelm fredrich hegel, you will get lost, but not as bad as other things by her i've read. maybe i'm getting better with time. or she's a really good writer. in fact what i led with is unfair because butler is a far better writer than hegel. but what happens with the figure of antigone is that it eventually starts to mean everything and nothing. antigone in her signified person, her act, and the world she is in, all starts to become indistinguishable, insovereign. i came here through lauren berlant and this is the defining text of insovereignty, or lauren berlant's idea of sovereignty. i still wonder if anyone has ever tied this abstract individualism thing to land. and if someone tried would it make it possible for people to deal with andrea smith?
lillianglippold's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
fucking brilliant, especially chapter three regarding the symbolic positioning of the brother. idk i think i just skimmed too much of this the last time i read it, or i got way too caught up in the kinship state divide as butler trudged through hegel. once we get into the shit about prophecy and specters and the symbolic … it gets good. the treatment of lacan in this book is so good and direct; it is rare i appreciate so much psychoanalysis in crit theory but…i guess a book on oedipus’ daughter/sister would be the place i’d be okay with that.
thanks judy b for another banger.
thanks judy b for another banger.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
Dr. Judith Butler is one of those theorists with whom I can disagree (and in fact do, quite often) while still respecting. Yes, her writing style is often opaque and labyrinthine; yes, she tends to misinterpret her sources (such as Foucault in Gender Trouble, possibly due to the translation issues?). But her writing is always interesting. And hey, the cover has an Ana Mendieta piece!
lunarcicles's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting. To say the least. (I didn’t understand half of what this book said but well)