Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 05:58:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Anita Berber <fdrtikol-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Butler & Nussbaum & Bad Writing


Why is Nussbaum doing this and is it part of something larger in terms
of a power struggle/shift in alliance within the University system.
That was what I feel the need to know.




---Stuart Elden <Stuart.Elden-AT-clara.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Joanna,
> 
> Thanks for posting this. I think your 'over simplifies and misses
the point'
> is far far too generous. Nussbaum gets Butler wrong. Very wrong. Why?
> 
> Either 1) she didn't understand it, but thought she did
> or 2) she did understand it, but felt better able to take on this
version
> or 3) she did understand it, but saw a virtue in misconstruing it
(so to
> make the point about bad writing stronger).
> 
> Any other options?
> 
> She also betrays a complete lack of knowledge of Althusser, grammar,
> structuralism, Gramsci, Foucault, etc.
> 
> But I thought Nussbaum was an Aristotle scholar (and a good one).
Why is she
> getting involved?
> 
> Stuart
> 
> 
> Nussbaum's
> >>>rewrite of Butler's entry in the Bad Writing contest. For those
who have
> >>>deleted Butler's entry, it follows:
> >>>"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is
understood to
> >>>structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a
view of
> >>>hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition,
convergence,
> >>>and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the
thinking
> >>>of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian
theory that
> >>>takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in
which the
> >>>insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a
> renewed
> >>>conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and
> strategies
> >>>of the rearticulation of power."
> >>>Nussbaum's rewrite:
> >>>"Marxist accounts, focusing on capital as the central force
structuring
> >>>social relations, depicted the operations of that force as
everywhere
> >>>uniform. By contrast, Althusserian accounts, focusing on power,
> >>>see the operations of that force as variegated and as shifting over
> time."
> 
> 
> 

="I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." Michel Foucault

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