Judith Butler is Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Her previous books include Gender Trouble (Routledge, 1990), and Bodies That Matter (Routledge, 1993).
"Powerful and persuasive arguments." -- Signs
"Butler's exploration of racist, sexist, and homophobic language is
hence of acute significance to anyone concerned with the
sociopolitical and theoretical implications of hate speech." -- The
Lesbian Review of Books
"This book offers a challenging analysis of the free speech
debates. As she moves from the often frightening contradictions in
legal arguments to the visceral pain caused by hate speech, Butler
makes a compelling case that our laws--and our lives--are
determined by conceptual frameworks." -- Lambda Book Report
"Excitable Speech offers a thoughtful consideration of the ways in
which speech and speaking are used by all points on the political
spectrum to further political ends." -- The Bay Guardian
"This sober and subtle work draws us into the dark heart of a world
where words wound, images enrage, and speech is haunted by hate.
Butler intervenes brilliantly in an argument that tests the limits
of both legal claims and linguistic acts. She explores the link
between 'reasons' of state and the passions of personhood as she
meditates on utterance as a form of incitement, excitement, and
injury. There is a fine urgency here that expands our understanding
of the place of the 'affective' in the realm of public events." --
Homi Bhabha, The University of Chicago
"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, witty, and lucidly argued.
This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the
politics of free speech." -- Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University
School of Law
"If to speak is to act, what follows? In this shrewd and compelling
book, Judith butler, the philosopher of Queer Theory and the
performative theory of gender, takes up the thorniest problems of
our day concerning the relation between speech and action, such as
hate speech, pornography, and the military's policy that makes a
declaration of homosexuality a punishable act. Her analyses are
brilliant engagements that refuse to oversimplify and show us that
politics requires serious thinking." -- Jonathan Culler, Cornell
University
"Flag burning and cross burning; pornography and coming out; racial
taunts and AIDS education; using 'racial classifications' and
remaining 'race blind': this book will provide constitutional and
legislative debates about regulating these forms of 'injurious
speech' with a brilliantly nuanced analysis of language as action.
Butler has provided us with a sustained demonstration that we
should fill in the moat that separates law schools from the human
sciences, and quickly." -- Janet Halley, Stanford Law School
"In this relentlessly intelligent analysis of hate speech, Judith
Butler proposes a speech act theory of verbal injury that is not
dependent on the grammar of accountability. Cautioning against
recourse to state speech to regulate hate speech, Butler argues
that, since naming constitutes as well as devastates, injury cannot
be cleanly and legalistically separated from recognition. This is
what gives hate speech so much power to wound, but also what opens
a space for turning misnaming to new purposes. There is never a
slack moment in this brilliant book." -- Barbara Johnson, Harvard
University
"In her extraordinary new book, Excitable Speech, Judith
Butler...looks conceptually at speech, and she has plenty to
say...Excitable Speech offers a thoughtful consideration of the
ways in which speech and speaking are used by all points on the
political spectrum to further political ends." -- The Bay
Guardian
"Makes a valuable contribution...No one should ignore Judith
Butler's analysis and conclusions." -- The Women's Review of Books
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
