Theorizing emotions with Judith Butler: within and beyond the courtroom.
Focusing upon emotion entails a potential challenge, both to hegemonic notions of the human subject and to social inquiry. That challenge consists in the opportunity afforded by research on emotion to radicalize the decentering of the subject that is at the heart of poststructuralist theorizing. An...
| Publicado en: | Rethinking History Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 221 - 241 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Jun2012
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=83741431&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 83741431 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13642529 5C5 jtl: Rethinking History issn: 13642529 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2012 vid: 16 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 83741431 10.1080/13642529.2012.681192 ppf: 221 ppct: 20 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 136KB tig: atl: Theorizing emotions with Judith Butler: within and beyond the courtroom. aug: au: Braunmühl, Caroline affil: Independent Scholar, Berlin, Germany sug: keyword: critique of ‘identity’ critique of 'identity' emotions melancholia/melancholy performativity poststructuralism the subject ab: Focusing upon emotion entails a potential challenge, both to hegemonic notions of the human subject and to social inquiry. That challenge consists in the opportunity afforded by research on emotion to radicalize the decentering of the subject that is at the heart of poststructuralist theorizing. An opportunity in virtue of which certain biases that continue to be instantiated in contemporary theorizations of the subject – poststructuralist ones included – could be overcome: namely, biases towards the cognitive as well as the active, as against the passive-receptive, dimensions of being alive. These biases, I argue, unproductively circumscribe our understanding of self, thereby constraining the possibilities for our ‘becoming otherwise’ (Butler 2004, 173); an endeavor I would define as being at the heart of poststructuralism qua transformative ethical project. In particular, I address several writings by Butler to argue that the increasing turn to emotions potentially confronts us with our exposure to what we cannot control; with our vulnerability. A vulnerability which the said cognitive (i.e., rationalist) and praxeological biases of contemporary theorizing – which are entailed in but not limited to poststructuralism – risk disavowing and devaluing, thereby nurturing a residual ethos of (self-)control that is contrary to the aspirations of poststructuralism, and that constitutes us as defensive, rigid, masculinist subjects. However, these ethico-political possibilities of an ‘emotional turn’ within social inquiry are unlikely to be realized as long as we understand it in terms of a mere topic for research; without opening up to its implications for what we understand to be the very point of such inquiry. The potential promise of a prospective ‘emotion studies’ thus sits side by side with the possibility that the challenge it poses will be contained in virtue of a conventional mode of conducting such research, which risks stabilizing rather than unsettling the hegemonic psycho-social order, partly in virtue of an identitarian account of the human subject. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Rethinking History is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Rethinking History holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2012 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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