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A review by stefhyena
Giving an Account of Oneself by Judith Butler
4.0
Butler summarises Foucault, Adorno, Levinas and Laplanche well (and critically). I particularly love the bit where she used Foucault to interrogate Foucault and found an incoherence in him (by his own rules) which is really relatable and kind of cute. Even the "greats" can't make sense of themselves.
I really enjoyed this book and thought a lot about subjectivity, ethics and feel a bit better about the incomprehensibility of everything after reading it. Weirdly my intention was to make myself OK with a shift to atheism but I don't think anything here demands atheism so I am stuck still believing in God (without requiring anyone else to). Now I am getting personal about why I read the book which is not at all useful to other readers. I probably didn;t take everything in as it's pretty complex and now I want to read all the people Butler was citing even though they are probably long-winded and will irritate me.
Anyway I like brevity but I wanted something a little bit more. Butler gives us what each of the others says but I would like her to draw it together or push it further or synthesize it a bit. It's a good start but I definitely want more.
I really enjoyed this book and thought a lot about subjectivity, ethics and feel a bit better about the incomprehensibility of everything after reading it. Weirdly my intention was to make myself OK with a shift to atheism but I don't think anything here demands atheism so I am stuck still believing in God (without requiring anyone else to). Now I am getting personal about why I read the book which is not at all useful to other readers. I probably didn;t take everything in as it's pretty complex and now I want to read all the people Butler was citing even though they are probably long-winded and will irritate me.
Anyway I like brevity but I wanted something a little bit more. Butler gives us what each of the others says but I would like her to draw it together or push it further or synthesize it a bit. It's a good start but I definitely want more.