Synopses & Reviews
Review
Judith Butler has written a vital, timely, and moving book that shines new light on the collective dimension of dissent. Instead of upholding the false division between thought and action, she recognizes that radical ideas are necessarily embodied. All over the world people are rising up and saying no to police violence, racial and gender discrimination, ecological devastation, austerity, and precarity. This powerful book is for anyone who has ever assembled with others to demand a more just and equal future. Astra Taylor, author of < i=""> The Peoples Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age <>
Review
In effect, Butler has written a manifesto against the privatization and individuation of political cultures. Butler's elegant and detailed philosophical reflections engage seriously and deeply with the writing of Arendt and some of the debates around humanity and social and political ontology that her work has generated. This is a profound and brief but very ambitious book. It is challenging but not dense, as lucid as it is timely. Paul Gilroy, author of < i=""> Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture <>
Review
Judith Butler wonderfully analyzes the power and promise of assembly, particularly the assembly of precarious populations, and in doing so offers a lucid and exciting analysis of contemporary forms of activism. This is a thinker at the height of her intellectual powers. Michael Hardt, co-author of < i=""> Commonwealth <>
Synopsis
Judith Butler elucidates the dynamics of public assembly under prevailing economic and political conditions. Understanding assemblies as plural forms of performative action, she extends her theory of performativity to show why precarity--destruction of the conditions of livability--is a galvanizing force and theme in today's highly visible protests.
About the Author
Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley.
University of California, Berkeley