9/3 on-line copy of handout for discussion

Feminist Theory

“I am not nor have I ever been gay” (Senator
Ironically, the Senator points to the very problem with trying to claim identities and innate essences as the basis for moral or political recognition. CNN devoted a whole hour or so to head scratching over how someone might actually engage in same-sex affective or sexual contact and yet not “be gay.”

Performativity
Gender and sex are produced through the repetition of cultural norms
Words, utterances do things

Yet! This does not imply that either is something that we are effectually in the process of “taking off” or “putting on.” Indeed these iterative norms are connected to laws and states, a complexity that we will be unfolding through this course.

Ontology and weak ontology ?

Example: Alberto Gonzalez’ comments on the suspension of habeas corpus:
GONZALES: The fact that the Constitution—again, there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But it’s never been the case, and I’m not a Supreme—
SPECTER: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can’t take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?

The conceptual machinery and epistemologies that discipline our lives depend on an unquestioning belief in the fixity and coherence of laws and states

Example: the gay marriage debate

The “”Teflon self” and the “sticky self”

(this gets tricky, though, since we need to invoke these structures in the pursuit of political aims).

Performativity: laws and (conceptual, symbolic, political) states rely on reiteration (reiterate:…). Their reiterative quality means that they contain within them the potential for “inaccuracies” and divergent paths.

The very deployment and articulation of laws (and let’s expand upon what we mean by law at this point) implies the possibility of their transgression

Why? How does this work?

Antigone (anti-gone: without generation/without re-production) will allow us to work through the intricacies of this, but for starters, we can outline a few key points to work with:

Antigone threatens to defy Creon’s law
What is Creon’s law? What/who does he rule over? Think carefully about how Creon re-states and re-defines what “the law” encompasses as the play progresses

Yet, ironically, Antigone actually enacts the law in her refusal to obey. How does this work? Let’s return to the example of gay marriage

Antigone is both within Creon’s law and outside of it – she represents the paradox of the law