A review by ralowe
Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative by Judith Butler

5.0

while i was reading this i couldn't stop thinking about rap and direct action. i don't really know why except for no other reason that it feels connected to the ideas of agency connected to language, that seems to operate through the language itself, that is the language like a living thing. i'm reading this back to back with kaja silverman's subject of semiotics. there's something super '90s about this book. i don't know why judith butler irritates so many people. she appears to be very rigorously community minded. what's she's writing here is a way that philosophy can be applied to lived experience. she's talking about what it's like to have your entire life forged in language. i don't really know what she's insinuating in that people can perhaps look the other way at slurs. thinking about redeploying and repurposing language that hurts us is always so tricky. it's so fraught with danger. nobody can come out clean. maybe it's because i conflate purity with ethics. maybe that's all just a delusion...