IAH Zoom Talks: Judith Butler

“Who Draws the World: Why Arts and Humanities are Crucial in the COVID-19 Crisis” — Judith Butler, in conversation with Florence Dore and Andrew Perrin

Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University in 1984. She is the author of several books: Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (1987), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993), The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (1997), Excitable Speech (1997), Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (2000), Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning (2004); Undoing Gender (2004), Who Sings the Nation-State?: Language, Politics, Belonging (with Gayatri Spivak in 2008), Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), and Is Critique Secular? (co-written with Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, and Saba Mahmood, 2009) and Sois Mon Corps (2011), co-authored with Catherine Malabou. Her most recent books include: Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012), Dispossession: The Performative in the Political (co-authored with Athena Athanasiou 2013), Senses of the Subject and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015), and a co-edited volume, Vulnerability in Resistance, with Duke University Press (2015). Her book, The Force of Nonviolence will appear with Verso Press in 2020. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages.

Dr. Butler will discuss why the arts and humanities are crucial in the COVID-19 crisis, starting from viewing mourning as a political act amid the pandemic and its disparities. Dr. Butler will be joined in conversation by Florence Dore, professor, and director of graduate studies in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Andrew Perrin, professor of sociology and director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at UNC-Chapel Hill.

To join via Zoom: Please RSVP via Eventbrite and a link and password will be emailed to you. Please note that registration closes 24 hours in advance of the talk to ensure all attendees receive the Zoom link/password ahead of time.

To learn more about the IAH Zoom Talk series, please visit our website. If you’d like to give one of these talks or have an idea of someone who might, please contact IAH Director Andrew Perrin at andrew_perrin@unc.edu.