Who Sings the Nation-state? Language Politics Belonging Review
Interesting and a dainty, short read. Nothing radically new if you are familiar with Butler'south piece of work just nonetheless dainty if you want to read a comprehensive argument against agamben's 'bare life' and are interested in nationalisms and sovereignty.
This book is similar jumping into the middle of a conversation betwixt ii people who practise not really desire to include yous in their chat. I say this because the small volume appears to be a transcription of a console discussion betwixt Spivak and Butler but there is no information to be found as to where/when/how this took place. These things brand some divergence. Is this conversation part of an academic performance within the confines of a university or was information technology secretely taped by someone who defenseless them together in a java shop? It simply becomes somewhat clear at the end of the book when unnamed people showtime asking questions. The book commences with Butler speaking and yet we are not certain if this is the starting time, middle or the finish of the chat, although the start two options seem the more likely. Butler begins by talking well-nigh the give-and-take "country" and almost all usa ane can exist in and so transitions into talking about statelessness in reference to Hannah Arendt's works from the 1950'southward. She gives some analysis of Arendt's thoughts and Spivak speaks for the first time on page 43 and then it is back to Butler before Spivak begins to offer any pregnant analysis on page 70. The example that Butler gives and from which the championship of the book is taken concerns the singing of the U.S. national anthem in Spanish. This allows for an interesting exchange betwixt both Butler and Spivak. While I did not discover anything in here that seems groundbreaking in relation to the nation-state this conversation does a skilful task of stimulating idea and pointing to different directions or ways in which the nation-state tin can be idea/re-imagined/enacted/enforced/undone in our current context. And are there any other possibilities? Butler's endmost line, "So we end here, on the hope of the unrealizable?" seems appropriate for the book. Nosotros are left with more questions than answers. The chat continues...if nowhere else than in your head.
I hateful, there was nothing new to either of their usual repertoire of (generative) thoughts. The worst idea for a "book" considering there'due south cipher context, bad editorial choices in terms of what to get out out and what to randomly include from what are I assume proceedings of a conference/effect. Maybe I should requite information technology one.
The book is supposed to exist a "dialogue" between Butler and Spivak, it sounds something similar a guest lecture past Butler although I couldnt find a description or something that'd prove this to be the case. It's definitely not worth BUYING. The title and the description of the book are exaggerated - this book does not even offer poignant questions nigh linguistic communication, politics and belonging - let alone answer anything. I was curious to read more about migrants, belonging and performative oral communication (e.g. when latino migrants sing the Us canticle in castilian, they literally evoke their rights to equality), but the volume is a total let downwards.
An adventitious finding, of which I had not heard before, I decided to read information technology but afterward going through some reviews on Goodreads I finished chop-chop, only it wasn't a pleasurable, or illuminating read.
If I could requite it less than 1 star I would. This is an offensive 'book' that is an affront to the legitimate work done past these scholars in their existent piece of work. If I transcribed the comments from whatsoever random undergraduate department information technology would exist more illuminating than this book. At least information technology wouldn't exist so bathed in pretentiousness and self-aggrandizing mental attitude.
I can't effigy out what the point of this "dialogue" (though more like a Butler monologue) is, other than a rehashing of Hannah Arendt. Hmmmm...
This is actually a conversation between Butler and Spivak turned into a volume.
Some of the themes discussed regard the idea of nationhood, minorities, the expression of freedom within a nation-state, as it is as well analysed in Hannah Arendt's works, and what information technology means today to be "statelessness".
It is an interesting read, a scrap hard to follow in some parts if you're non familiar with subjects of law, but is worth it.
Want to Read
Edited June 24, 2010Ok, I read this. Most of it. I have no idea what I read. I retrieve reading Butler the first fourth dimension requires either a unlike book, or a group to read it with, considering this was fucking difficult, convoluted, and referenced a simply of other stuff I hadn't read. Annoying. So, i moved it back to my "to-read" list, because I got two/3 of the way through, and gah. Couldn't stop it.
Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak. That's probably all I need to say.
I accept to be honest, I read this considering I was curious to read Spivak and so it's Butler ranting for well-nigh 4/5 of information technology. I've liked Butler at other things and she made sense here, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for (that's what I get for choosing the volume I can afford instead of looking for a synopsis or something). I experience a little more familiar with Arendt (who I haven't read) after this. My favourite part was Spivak putting down the people who asked stupid questions. I don't know why I always banter for the speaker who does that. Probably deep downwardly inside I am a complete bowwow.
Read
October 25, 2019Interesting concepts: translation centered in the issue of public politics and national belonging (Butler) and "critical regionalism" (Spivak), though they talk around these things; and their theory of the land is conservative.
as others take said, this is a strangely edited volume, and it doesn't come to much decision, nor is it groundbreaking. merely it is, i suppose, useful enough. i might revisit it some fourth dimension.
An often difficult text, Butler spends much of the first half of the discussion restating and reinterpreting the ideas of Arendt and Agamben in lodge to make them relevant in a new context. I generally concord with many of the other Goodreads reviewers; zilch terribly groundbreaking here. However, information technology does heighten some interesting questions on multiculturalism and universalism, (or fifty-fifty globalism), in the paradigmatic sense. While the discussion is more often than not centered on nationalism and the idea of the "nation-state" in the framework of ethno-lingua and I judge even economic identity, it would exist interesting to read Butler and Spivak expound on other potential types of supra-national projects exterior of the economic, political and juridical institutions. Maybe those which supervene upon national identity in favor of culture.
Outset, this was a quick read. I read it in just over an 60 minutes. Plain, I'll demand to read information technology again, but I got the gist. Second, this book is set like a conversation betwixt Spivak and Butler. The volume fails to tell y'all that. And it fails to tell you the context. Is this an email substitution? A conference panel? At the cease bearding people beginning request questions. Introductions are wonderful things. 3rd, Butler dominates the conversation. The bulk of the book is Butler talking/writing/communicating with Spivak chiming in "carry on" or some such phrase every dozen pages. Spivak does contribute significantly to the second half of the book. I don't feel like there was annihilation earth-shattering here - at least for someone who spends a lot of time thinking near the nation-state, statelessness, and the immigrant rights movement. Simply it was interesting to hear how Spivak and Butler approached the topic - and much of Butler'southward comment regarded Hannah Arendt'southward writings, which I most certainly need to go re-read.
Quick read [for BUTLER- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!] Of notation: I bought information technology at the MIT Press Bookshop which is totally AMAZING and if y'all come visit me I'll bring you in that location. They have a small but ample Critical Theory department, and you'll exist tempted to walk out with a book on neuroscience simply because the design is so lovely. Besides, the Econ. section ain't so bad either.
Briefly:
Spivak rules. Butler talks too much. Interesting conception of "critical regionalism" which you don't really expect from post-Marxists such as these.
I bought it partly because I liked the design, and partly because I like the idea of publishing a conversation between two disquisitional thinkers of Our Era.
Butler, even when talking, is all the same hard [painful, even!] to understand, but Spivak is darling and articulate as e'er. J'adore!
Not much of a 'volume,' but instead an extended dialogue probably adjusted pretty directly from an academic briefing sometime later April 2006. The title refers to castilian-speaking immigrants who sung the US national anthem in their native tongue at protests in the aforementioned calendar month. Information technology is likewise a chat well-nigh the phenomenon of 'statelessness' and the insufficiency of current theories in this regard. The points here are all strong but at that place isn't enough compages to fully flesh-out the specifics of what Butler and Spivak think needs to be done. The ultimate bulletin, it would seem, is that publicly demanding freedom which 1 does not have -- whether yous are Mexican in the United states, Palestinian in the OTs, or Bengal in Hindustan -- is what creates the space to attain said freedom. Many questions here, few answers, a niche book with a really well-designed cover.
This is probably the 8th fourth dimension I am rereading this piffling volume. And every time there's something new and profound that a) either I didn't understand on the previous reread or b) I completely overlooked. It'southward a slim book that packs then much in. I almost wish this were my introduction to Butler and Spivak instead of sexuality/subaltern studies, because Who Sings A Nation State is, at the heart of everything, a chat. They are both talking from immense cognition and rumination, but this is so accessible and stimulating without the usual trappings of philosophy/political theory. I've taught parts of this book a bunch, and volition definitely use it many more times to come.
Though not groundbreaking or anything of that sort, I'yard intrigued by this book. I plant Butler'south notion of statelessness fascinating. A like, yet completely dissimilar case of such state tin can exist found in the Northeast region of India where the natives, who became office of Bharat only afterwards the independence of India in 1947, are torn between the whims and tyranny of insurgent groups and the Indian ground forces that has led to the complete breakdown of both civil and human rights, thus, leaving the people juridically displaced. Spivak's diagnosis of the nation-state, too, is one that I've been mulling over for quite some time now. If only they took the time and infinite to work it all out!
Read
January 29, 2008At nearly 100 tiny pages, information technology is more of a mini-book than a book nevertheless information technology is still chock full of ideas. Spivak argues for the necessity of the minimal state every bit an instrument of redistibution and suggests "critical regionalism" as a direction to go. Butler writes about the importance of "performative contradiction" (by which she means the act of exercising a freedom and asserting an equality "precisely in relation to an authority that would preclude both"-- e.thousand. the immigrant rights marches in 2006) to a radical politics of change.
Butler dominates this conversation, but the text is useful for points near critical regionalism, the distinction betwixt nation and state, the decline of the nation-country in the globalized moment, and the aesthetics of politics (namely singing and its human relationship to nationalism).
Actually good so far. A curt expect at the nation state in opposition to Agamben's concept of "blank-life" andin relation to Arendt's work.
Want to Read
June 25, 2008Is in that location a Cliff Notes version? I've been wanting to read this simply lordy, I don't remember I can...
Read
Edited October xix, 2012
well paced and engaging analysis of the state, nationalism, self-determination, and the sovereign.
this is absurd but why butler gotta exist like that?
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/288274
Post a Comment for "Who Sings the Nation-state? Language Politics Belonging Review"