Author: Peter Indall
Social critic and prolific author Dr. Judith Butler spoke on “Global Responsibility in Time of War” 10 a.m., Saturday, April 19 in Johnson 200. The talk was presented by the Ruenitz Trust Fund Distinguished Speakers Series and the Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Butler, the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, is the author of dozens of books and articles including Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection, “Endangered/Endangering: Schematic Racism and White Paranoia” and “Universality in Culture.” In 2004, she published Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning, a book of collected essays on war’s impact on language and thought.
The Ruenitz Trust Fund Distinguished Speakers Series, created in 2006 with a gift from New York entrepreneur Robert M. Ruenitz ’60 and his wife Jeri Hamilton through the Ruenitz Trust, honors the memory of Ruenitz’s parents, Esther Merriman Ruenitz and Dr. Robert C. Ruenitz. The Speakers Series features speakers chosen, not by faculty, but by Phi Beta Kappa Juniors, who over several meetings make the decision of who to invite. The concept behind this approach is to bring one global speaker to campus each year that will spark discussion with the hopes of inspiring action beyond the normal academic experience. The Occidental Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1926, and is recognized as one of the first chapters of the country’s oldest academic honor society to be chartered at a liberal arts college in the western United States. Phi Beta Kappa member Alison Reed (senior) introduced Dr. Butler, speaking of the intellectual influence of performativity and other notions of sexuality that the professor spearheaded.
Speaking to an overcrowded room, Butler began by outlining notions of responsibility in a time of war. In the process of transition from responsibility for oneself to that of an entire nation, she asked, “When does the ‘I’ become ‘we?'” This becomes especially troublesome when a war is waged in the name of a common good, whether with the consent of the collective or not. Referencing historical and literary examples, Butler traced the process by which war is justified and how a hierarchy emerges between higher and lower valued lives. Noting contemporary controversies such as torture at Abu Grahib, the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who have no access to legal process and the practice of governmental monitoring of e-mail and phone calls of ordinary citizens she asked the audience to assess how they respond to these events.
Dr. Butler read excerpts from poems by prisoners at Guantanamo that have managed to be leaked to the public. She noted that of the more than 2,500 lines of poetry written by the prisoners, 90 percent was destroyed due to the Pentagon’s summation that “poetry presents a special risk for national security due to its content and format.” The contradictions of torturing in the name of peace and imposing a democratic government through undemocratic means emerged as central themes of Butler’s exploration of the War on Terror.
After the discussion, several members of the Occidental community offered questions and responses to the talk. Professor of English Writing Katie Mills asked about the role of the media in the iconography of war and Dr. Butler spoke about how the media establishes the framework not only for how a war is consumed but also understood.
Vanda Ayrepetyan (senior) asked about the “formulation of the other,” how some lives come to be viewed as more valuable than others. Butler said “journalists cannot be questioned about their patriotism” and how due to the necessary protection from military in war zones, journalists cannot help but provide a biased view of the military.
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