Where should I start with Butler?

Gender Trouble

Start by taking any books you have of hers and throwing them into the trash. No discernible talent, don't waste your time.

By tying the noose.

>>8720525
Do people say "no discernible talent" unironically here?

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>>8720523
Will the language be too much for me? Should I read other theory to make it make more sense?

>>8720515
are you familiar with Foucault?

>>8720551
No. Where should I start with him?

>>8720662
well foucault's important works are madness and civ., order of things, discipline and punish, and history of sexuality. You probably do not need to read any of these to understand butler but she is in his tradition, particularly history of sexuality but she uses the same framework of historical analysis and the development of different power structures within society. I'm not super familiar with Butler but what I do know is that she focuses more on the performative nature of individuals within a society which is more nascent than developed in foucault's works. And of course if you want to go even further back than foucault, they both come from Heidegger and Nietzsche originally. Her work has some weird prose but it's not the cerebral philosophical kind, it becomes second nature when you learn the vocabulary and accept the off kilter axioms, as with Heidegger and Foucault.

>>8720662
here I was actually reading this the other day.

http://humanities.wisc.edu/assets/misc/Butler.pdf

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thank me later

>>8720731
>>8720755
>>8720774
Thanks. I'll check them out

>>8720515
Before you start with pleb philosophy, you should have read at least all great classics. To me she was suggested by a friend, who claimed this to be one of the best currently living philosophers. Needless to say how disappointed i was after i noticed, how many precious hours of my live were wasted at theorys, which are simply ridiculous and anti scientific.

read Beatriz Preciado instead.

>>8720531
Triple-layer irony.
Sincerity with an ironic voice.
Yes.

The rubbish bin.

>>8720515
Read Gender Trouble.

I didn't think it was too difficult but I had read The Second Sex & History of Sexuality Vol. 1 first, both of which probably helped. A lot of the psychoanalysis stuff went over my head but unless you plan to read Lacan or Kristeva beforehand I wouldn't worry too much about it. You'll still get something out of it. Great book, don't listen to the haters.