Why is Judith Butler taken seriously in Academia?

It doesn't really. I mean some of it probably does. But a lot of what she wrote was before science was heavily definitively weighing in on nature vs nurture when it comes to gender roles.

But more importantly, she does make a lot of points about the way we perform gender, not just asserting that gender is or isn't performed.

Her initial influential works were largely influenced by her family emigrating to USA and watching them trying to enact USA styles of gender, from movies etc, rather than behaving the ways they previously had in Europe

that's what i mean, these literary genealogists trying to trace every great writer back to Shakespeare or something were clearly grasping with that one

Actually I'm a final year english undergrad. My uni is one of the most progressive and radicalised institutions in my country, every other week one of the seminar buildings is occupied by protesters over this or that social issue. Even lecturers play their part in organising seminars telling students how to "deal with" explicitly right-wing views in class. Don't get me started on the way it covers up its finances because it definitely takes inordinate sums of money from middle-eastern countries infamous for their abuse of human rights, all in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism. The whole thing stinks of cultural regression.

also the other thing i think people don't "get" about gender, and i'm not sure if this is from butler or somewhere else (i've only read secondary sources) is that just because you are "performing" gender, and gender is a social construct, doesn't mean gender isn't real to you, it's not like when you go about your day you are pretending to be your gender, performing and pretending, not the same...even butler says "being a lesbian is what i've always been" in the sense that her lesbianess is a verb not an adjective

>o "deal with" explicitly right-wing views in class

Wtf. Is this true?

America is truly fucked.

well if you're a republican why the fuck did you sign up to go some liberal school? go to university of chicago or some private christian school in the south if that kind of shit bothers you

Good point user. She does indeed make these clarifications.

a lot of "right wing" views are objectively wrong tho and should not be coddled in an academic environment...sorry if that hurts ur feefees, you can go back to your trailer park in alamaby if you want to believe "you didn't come from no monkey" etc.

How are our ideas 'objectively wrong'? In what sense? Give me an example.

i just gave you one dumbass

No you didn't, you just acted like a cunt to that user. Give one or fuck off.

Problem is that conservative universities are almost always shitty low-rent institutions. Meanwhile the top-ranking prestigious schools are among the most left leaning.

I'm not a right-winger but I feel sorry for people like him, they have to choose between going to a prestigious school and being a political outcast and going to a shit school and being around like-minded peers.

I think what he's saying is that "views can be objectively wrong" is objectively wrong, and that is the example he is giving.

But mixing with people who have antithetical ideas is only a good thing. It will either make you rethink your ideas or strengthen your resolve

so you're saying global warming and evolution are open to debate?

That user said nothing about views being objectively wrong is objectively wrong.

I'm not saying anything. Read it again.

yes, but wasting lecture time on that one kid who reads too many rightwing blogs and thinks pizzagate is real is not adding value to anything, some relatively "mainstream" views are fucking retarded and there is no point in wasting time on them in a serious academic environment

He said he just gave you an example. And I assume his example was in his post. And the only real view in there was "views can be objectively wrong"

so then what exactly did you think the part about "i didn't come from no monkey" was referring to?

I'm not that user, I'm another user and not part of the American right. That poster gave no argument or example, he barely even gave that 'view' you are using to justify them.

Are you this much of a pleb?

ITT: user realizes that the academia is nothing but a marxist circlejerk whose only function is to sell ideology to the masses and call it knowledge

>some cucks from islamic europe

oh spare us the bullshit, to softees like you hillary clinton is considered rightwing, the rightwing ideas that get shot down in american universities is blatant racist or sexist shit. i remember seeing a jewish professor shoot down some jewish lesbian who was proudly telling our class how jews have the highest iqs, and he professor is like "uh, no, jews just value eduction" i'm sure for jewish supremacists the professor was a race traitor giving comfort to gentiles, sorry if he hurt your zionist feefees

There's so much nonsense and assumption in this post I wouldn't know where to start. As it is, it's just retarded. You are obviously either butt hurt or stupid, whichever you can live with better.

butt hurt about what? i'm not a crybaby who whines if some paper thin foxnews talking points get btfo

You only need to read a few classics in order to smarter than the charlatans you praise, user.

Nor am I. So what? I'm by the way.

yeah, professors have never read homer, especially literature professors, those dudes don't know shit

Because she is a socialist and her work is useful for revolutionary socialist politics (instrumentalizing degenerates as agents of the revolution).

Political allignment is everything.

I unironically agree with your post.

We need a Henry VIII. Dissolution of the universities now. They are basically political institutions aiming at absolute power nowadays, not educational institutions anymore.

We can substitute that model with vocational schools afterwards.

>implying the work of integrating outsider identities in the mainstream isn't part of the capitalist project

once all the poor degenerates can point to a rich degenerate role model at goldman sachs they will feel less alienated from capital, butler may not be intending to strengthen capitalism that is the outcome

but without elite universities how will the ruling class launder privilege into credentials?

>I'm not a right-winger but I feel sorry for people like him
Actually I'm not even right wing, but this is precisely the problem. How are you supposed to critique the institution without being disavowed from the conversation? Why should the left be any more impervious to critique simply because it claims to speak for ordinary working people?

didn't you watch the foucault chomsky debate? this is what foucault was talking about, even if you abolish capitalism, there is still going to be a power structure like the university where mandarins like chomsky pick and choose winners from a mass of striving plebs, you can't abolish "power" with a revolution

Right-wing conspiracy theories are less damaging than revolutionary communism, and yet the later is accepted at academia.

Did Foucault actually believe that, though, or was he saying this because it gave power to his political group? He was also a "mandarin", after all.

History shows us that if we can't abolish "Power", we can at least reduce the cancerous power of the priestly caste

i think you're overrating how accepting communist shit is in college, sure i attended protests with tenured marxist literature professors, but i also got glared at and snarked by other professors when i'd make smug marxist declarations in class discussions, academia is made of individuals, they're not all communists, most are just liberals twisted into an identity politics pretzel

This. If academics at most universities starting going on about communism, they would be a laughing stock of each and every dept, including literature.

Most literary academics know the theories of Marxism, but most aren't even Marxists.