Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative‘When we claim to have been injured by language, what kind of claim do we make?’ - Judith Butler, Excitable Speech Excitable Speech is widely hailed as a tour de force and one of Judith Butler’s most important books. Examining in turn debates about hate speech, pornography and gayness within the US military, Butler argues that words can wound and linguistic violence is its own kind of violence. Yet she also argues that speech is ‘excitable’ and fluid, because its effects often are beyond the control of the speaker, shaped by fantasy, context and power structures. In a novel and courageous move, she urges caution concerning the use of legislation to restrict and censor speech, especially in cases where injurious language is taken up by aesthetic practices to diminish and oppose the injury, such as in rap and popular music. Although speech can insult and demean, it is also a form of recognition and may be used to talk back; injurious speech can reinforce power structures, but it can also repeat power in ways that separate language from its injurious power. Skillfully showing how language’s oppositional power resides in its insubordinate and dynamic nature and its capacity to appropriate and defuse words that usually wound, Butler also seeks to account for why some clearly hateful speech is taken to be iconic of free speech, while other forms are more easily submitted to censorship. In light of current debates between advocates of freedom of speech and ‘no platform’ and cancel culture, the message of Excitable Speech remains more relevant now than ever. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Preface by the author, where she considers speech and language in the context contemporary forms of political polarization.
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From inside the book
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... claims and linguistic acts.” Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University, USA “Judith Butler has brilliantly challenged us to rethink our conventional ideas about the power of speech. As is to be expected of Butler, Excitable Speech is original ...
... claim to have been injured by language, what kind of claim do we make? Judith Butler, Excitable Speech Excitable Speech is widely hailed as a tour de force and one of Judith Butler's most important books. Examining in turn debates about ...
... claim that bodily injury is not the only way to experience violence, and that language can do violence as well, that ... claims against such speech tend to underscore the debilitating effect it has on their ability to function in society ...
... claim to a democratic West Germany. From that perspective, the US legal discourse on these matters has always seemed odd. The U.S. has never thought that swastikas and burning crosses strike at the heart of its claim to democracy. The ...
... claim to be, that claim is not as important as the defense of the doctrine. The defense of the doctrine can lead to situations in which the people are left defenseless by the doctrine in light of racist attacks. Further, what does it ...
Contents
on linguistic vulnerability | 1 |
1 Burning acts injurious speech | 43 |
2 Sovereign performatives | 70 |
paranoia and homosexuality in the military | 103 |
4 Implicit censorship and discursive agency | 127 |
NOTES | 165 |
INDEX | 181 |