In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler examines the phenomenon of gender and how it relates to sexuality and social significance. Butler argues that the conception of gender is established via social conventions. She supports her argument with numerous philosophical ideas and stimulating questions, and she also provides illustrations of these realities, one being drag shows.

     Butler cites Foucault’s Discipline and Punish to understand better social conventions. Which she expresses as a rewrite of Nietzsche’s ideas of internalization, in which civilization internalizes external standards and thus signifies the consistent generality of such identity. Butler goes a step further, concluding that these identifying signifiers are ‘performative,’ not innate in anyone but are utilized to offshoot one’s desired social classification.

     Butler writes,“Such acts, gestures, enactments, generally construed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means. That the gendered body is performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality” (2548). 

     Drag is an excellent example of performance; it is where the subject intentionally differentiates “between inner and outer psychic space ” it gives us a clue to the way in which the relationship between primary identification – that is, the original meanings accorded to gender-and subsequent gender experience might be reframed” ( Butler 2549). An incompatible play between outer illusionary femininity and inner masculinity works simultaneously when a drag queen performs. Further, Butler states that we witness explicit distinctions of anatomical sex, gender identity, and gender performance within attending a drag show. Males may be heterosexual and drag queens; these categories do not overlap. But it also confirms the very social convention of “women” as the imitating elements characterize the vision of social structure. 

     Overall, Butler declares gender as a social convention that dictates identity in ways that marginalize some and certainly restrict all; these limitations create illusionary signifiers for masculine and feminine associations, which generate expectations toward sexuality and identification.

Here is a 30 minute audio lecture hitting some of the high points of the Spillers piece for today. I also recommend the Wikipedia entry on Spillers. Weirdly, it doesn’t say much about her career beyond the “Mama’s Baby” essay, but it gives a bang-up summary of the argument.

Your only assignment is to email me a brief (one-paragraph) comment or question on the reading. Here are some questions that you can answer, though you’re free to write about some other aspect if you like:

1. How does Spillers open the essay? What does it mean to be a “marked woman”? How does this opening compare with Fanon’s from earlier in the term?
2. What is the Moynihan Report? You might need to use Google or Wikipedia to get a quick sense. What are some of the ways Spillers confronts the conclusions of the Report regarding the “black family”?
3. What is distinctive about the shape of the black family that emerges from enslavement? How and why does it differ from the patriarchal structure of Western families, the structure assumed by Freud’s theory?
4. What is “monstrous” about black mothers in Spillers’ view? See p. 80. Is this a bad thing? What are some of the effects of the centrality of this maternal figure in the black family?

And for good measure, here’s the lecture on Peter Brooks’s essay from Tuesday. As with today’s class, if you haven’t already, you should email me a one-paragraph response to any of the study questions to stand as your participation grade for the day.

For Tuesday, we’ll be back in action. We’ll read an excerpt from Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: I don’t have the right page numbers, since my copy is at the office, but you’ll find it in the Norton. I’m going to post the correct study questions right now as well. For those who have used their “skip,” you’ll need to submit your final blog post by Tuesday. Feel free to expand on your paragraphs on Brooks or Spillers for that assignment, if you like.

Saussure had a brilliant mind and he knew he had no good theory and that’s why he never published anything. He even said that he had a dissatisfaction with language theory. All the stuff published in his name was put together from the notes his students took during his lectures. Ferdinand de Saussure emphasized the importance of language along with a synchronic perspective. He was mostly focused on language as a system made up of  relations between the elements. In his theory, the system can be destroyed in detail, it is possible to study it in Saussure’s opinion even though lots would disagree. Example, if you have a huge number of elements to research through time, it’s a lot of work. That’s why he proposed study in language at one point in time, so that you take all data and create a complete picture of one system with all its relations between the elements.

In Interpretation of Dreams and “The Uncanny”, Sigmund Freud discussed the Oedipus complex where it is a common occurrence for an individual to be in love with one parent—who’s the opposite sex typically and to hate the other—typically the parent of the same sex of the individual. I’ve always found the complex highly unsettling and disturbing. Dreams were a very important part in Freud’s studies. He described dreams as a picture puzzle because in order to extract meaning out of dreams they need to be connected to make sense. Dreams are not to be just taken at face value. He also uses the term “dream thoughts” and again emphasizes they are not a complete material. Being a psychology major, there’s always been a lot of question and skepticism to Freud’s studies and conclusions, and its validity and reputability. I definitely agree that interpretations can be made of dreams. It often feels like there’s a meaning to dreams despite the scenarios often being nonsensical, random, and strange. The current consensus of dreams is that their purpose is for the brain to work through problems faced in real life. There’s definitely meaning that can be extracted from dreams. But many of the dream interpretations and symbolic meanings claimed have no substantial backing. Interpretations are inherently subjective and there are many that contradict each other. Freud in this text continuously makes claims of understanding dreams and their function. In reality,  we don’t understand dreams entirely, still. I definitely see the importance in learning about Freud’s theories such as, id vs ego. Many of his theories are famously known and for good reason. Dream thoughts fall under id while ideas of repression and encoding fall under the ego. These theories are very important because psychologist have used Freud’s theories as a foundation to build more developed, complex, and accurate theories. Freud discussed condensation which is the idea that people can’t handle the whole truth so the brain enacts censorship. Freud suggests condensation is one of the reasons why dreams aren’t fully remembered or make sense. I definitely see how the idea of censorship to avoid the truth plays out in life. There is sayings like, you can’t handle the truth for a reason. There are avoidant behaviors that are exhibited in human nature all the time. People avoid arguments and conflict, or avoid acknowledging times when they are wrong. I think Freud is very interesting to learn about because his studies were very revolutionary and shocking for the time, and has provided as stepping stones in psychology.

In “Formation of the Intellectuals”, Antonio Gramsci asks the question: are intellectuals there are own group, or are they a part of every social group? In order to understand intellectuals’ role it is important to define hegemony as: social control through social and economic systems. Intellectuals help uphold hegemony and civil society. I found it very interesting learning about intellectuals being broken down even further into traditional and organic. Lawyers, educators, and doctors fall into traditional because they follow a structure put in place by society for their profession like the BAR. While artists and musicians fit into the organic category because they are their own boss essentially and don’t adhere to a higher up company or business.  Learning about this perspective on artists felt really inspiring. I think it’s almost ideal for many people to be their own boss and create something that is entirely their own. In many ways the organic path seems more based in passion rather than about making money or climbing the corporate ladder. To have that kind of career seems really liberating but of course taxing in its own ways. I think the fact that they’re not exactly contributing to society in the traditional way of like how a doctor would leads the organic professions to be less respected. Also with the idea that they don’t have a boss, have a seemingly less structured and rigid life leads people to perceive their profession to not be hard and in turn less respected. Therefore, I really like Gramsci’s idea that everyone is an intellectual but not everyone fulfills the function of an intellectual while feeding into hegemony. I really respect the artists and musicians because they’ve forged their own path. And I think a lot of people almost envy their lives but don’t follow that path because there is a high risk of failure while also it’s hard to break out of the social/economic system discussed. That’s also why a self made entrepreneur or millionaire is so respected because they almost seemingly defied all odds. There is an aspect of Gramsci’s argument that a disagreed with. Gramsci claims education systems are important because their social function is to include many intellectuals for a complex society. I think it’s ideal for schools to be inclusive of many intellectuals but they often end up being narrowminded in their approach and attitudes. Schools often starting in high school and earlier are constantly trying to push STEM fields onto students while losing the sense of importance and respect for the literature and arts. I have personally felt this emphasis throughout my educational years. It feels like society is pushing for a certain kind of intellectuals—those who are STEM focused. Society is pushing this through they education system but also through a general consensus of what is a respectable profession. So I wish Gramsci’s vision of the education system’s purpose was upheld but often I feel like it isn’t.

Karl Marx ideologies is very understandable. He focuses on telling us about capitalism. The cruelty of it all. He talks about capitalism in the industry. The alienation of normal citizens working for owners. How normal corporate workers have no say if what goes. Working under horrible conditions to provide for families. Karl Marx wanted to focus on the minds of the working class. The people who don’t have a say in the capitalist world. Marx stated that “the industrial capitalism economy alienated individuals from the work they do, unable to control their own label, which they must sell to another, they lack control and knowledge of themselves and never achieve their full human potential (pg. 648). Basically, what I was pointing out earlier. Marx basically explains how much of a took you are to corporations, but Engels shared the same ideas as him. What is also talked about is what role in society do writers, critics and intellectuals play. Writers have the ability to voice how they feel about society, which in the corporation industry they didn’t have a say to do what they want. It’s basically the same as being a robot. Marx believed that capitalism will end, which obviously it hasn’t. At this point it won’t end until the world is over and destroy itself.

In “Melville’s Fist: The Execution of Billy Budd, Barbara Johnson offers a simple plot that covers innocent vs guilty, and good vs bad. Billy Budd is wrongfully accused of mutiny by Claggart, whom he ends up killing. The tale ends with Billy being hung. One aspect I’d like to focus on is the contradicting characteristics of the characters. The characters seem pretty straight forward in how they can be perceived by the readers—at least in the beginning. But Billy Budd who seems innocent, kills. Claggart who is evil, dies a victim. Vere, who is depicted as responsible and reasonable, convicts a man who he believes to be innocent. These actions contradict the way the characters have been depicted by Barbara, which adds a layer of moral dilemma for us, as the reader while giving us the opportunity to be the judge of right and wrong.  I believe ones’ actions are what one should be judged for rather than their claimed morals and character. Actions over words. Therefore, I believe all the characters are at fault in some way or another. This view point is discussed directly in the text when said, “the relation between human ‘being’ and human ‘doing’” (2261) are at opposition. I believe it’s also  important to look at the accumulation of actions vs one out of character action too. So Claggart is still conniving in nature but he does die in the role of a victim. But dying a victim does not absolve him of the label of evil he gets since up until the majority of his actions have been bad. Billy’s stutter is an important element to the story as it highlights how each of the characters are flawed. A lot of interpretations could be made on Billy’s stutter, such as, a stutter hinders the ability for one to communicate themselves accurately and clearly. In turn, Billy’s stutter aligns with the fact that his character is misunderstood and misjudged when he is wrongfully accused for a crime he didn’t commit. And how his good nature can be disregarded for a crime he didn’t commit. Also it’s important to note how Billy’s stutter is not something he can control. In the same way, Billy involuntarily gets involved in a crime when accused and then delivers a blow. Billy’s fate seems out of his hands just as his stutter was a faulty trait that he could be misjudged for. But more so, I think the biggest takeaway from Billy’s stutter is the importance of how we are perceived and that each of the characters reveal a major flaw that can be seen as their moral downfall.

Lancan, “the mirror stage” speaks upon the growth of a child and how they start to interpret and understand things. The mirror stage is that when a child approaches a mirror, they then see their reflection. A bit confused because they’ve never actually seen themselves and they are now fascinated. The start to understand and physically see that they have control over their body, they will then see that their actually able to move their body parts. The many thoughts that run through this baby’s head is what forms their confidence and conscious. When reading this I automatically compared it to Piagets theory. She explained that the steps of a child’s growth has to do with the changes in their behavior and the cognitive process. A child’s actions is tied in with their understanding and observations. Child development has to do with nature and human intelligence. They start to build their knowledge from early without even knowing it. Not only does a mirror help development but also objects, the texture, colors and shape.

Humans, unlike animals, fight their most primal selves in order to pursue their full potentials as intelligent beings. In the story of Oedipus Rex, the protagonist, Oedipus, is told a prophecy that he would kill his father, and lay with his mother. However, by the time that he is told the prophecy, it has already started. Originally, it was his birth parents, the Theban royalty, that heard the prophecy. Instead of properly teaching their children, the parents had sent for the killing of the child. However, the shepherd tasked with doing so could not carry out the act and gave the boy to the Corinthian royalty, who could not bear a child at all. Thus, when the Corinthian prince, Oedipus, heard of the prophecy, he vowed to never to return to Corinth in order to prevent it from ever occurring. Instead, he headed toward Thebes, where on the road there, he had inadvertently killed his paternal father, solved the sphinx’s riddle, and marries Queen Jocasta, who he doesn’t know is his maternal mother. Such a story is held in high regards, even in modern times, because of Oedipus’s own revulsion to the act. In trying to prevent the prophecy from occurring, all characters, even Oedipus’s biological parents, helped in the fulfillment of the prophecy.

It can be argued that if the Theban royalty had instead raised the child correctly, then the prophecy would never have fulfilled. But the story should not be consumed literally, but metaphorically. The prophecy is the symbol for the animalistic aspect of humans, where humans are in a constant struggle to repress their ‘natural’ desires to strive for intelligence. The common man is Oedipus, who fights their primal self to stay a human. Even though he tries his hardest to prevent the prophecy from occurring,  it occurs regardless. I believe that this is a representation for the fact that humans will inevitably lose to their animalistic selves. While Oedipus was aware of his true feelings, it is that same awareness, that unknowingly guides him to his tragedy. That awareness is the ego. The feelings that he is unaware of and declines so much is represented by the id. These subconscious feelings are in a tug of war between the ego, and it is up to the superego to be the law. The superego is generally represented by the father figure, which he had inadvertently killed while pondering the prophecy. As a result of the killing of his law, it was inevitable that he would regress to his primal self and sleep with his mother.

The story of Oedipus Rex is the story of the common human man fighting against his animalistic self to strive for intelligence. Even though Oedipus lost his battle, his hard fought battle is what makes the story stand out from the others of the genre. Freud, in the Interpretation of Dreams, compares Oedipus’s story to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Freud writes that the main difference between the two is that Hamlet is, “built up on Hamlet’s hesitations over fulfilling the task of revenge that is assigned to him; but its text offers no reasons or motives for these hesitations and an immense variety of attempts at interpreting them have failed to produce a result.” In Hamlet’s specific case, he ignores the vengeance for his father because he wanted to get rid of his law and superego, which was his father. It only takes his mother’s death where he fulfilled the vengeance, even after having many chances between his two parents’ deaths. His love for his mother is more pronounced than his love for his father. Because his uncle had gotten in the way of Hamlet’s process of loving his mother, he had completed the revenge. Hamlet’s story is one of repression, unlike Oedipus’s great battle. Although both lost to their animalistic selves, Oedipus’s story reigns supreme because readers value a human who would fight their very natures.

        Francoise Meltzer’s text investigates the term Unconscious and how scholars theoretically recognize it with a comparative examination of Psychoanalysis’s Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.  

        She first encourages the questioning of the phrase, reasoning that in its sound use, it is an adjective. It is partly attribution because it is neither a place nor a thing. And it is polysemantic, “Similarly complex is the fact that to be “unconscious” can mean all sorts of things – anything from being asleep to being in ignorance of something, to being in a coma, to having a certain kind of innocence, and so on”(Meltzer 1).  

        In addition, she is fascinated by the realism bound up in its mysticism, “In other words, the irony is that the unconscious can only be described in, or understood in, the realm and rules of “consciousness”‘ (Meltzer 3). It’s a paradoxical element, both not falsifiable and not secured. Nonetheless, it has assisted in the formation of psychoanalysis.  

        Meltzer breaks down Freud’s theory into descriptive, dynamic, and systematic categories. Descriptive is best described as Freud’s topographical model, with consciousness showing up on the surface and the unconsciousness hidden beneath. The space or barrier between these two domains keeps the subject disconnected from repressed desire; Meltzer demonstrates how unconsciousness in this sense evolves from an adjective to a noun, an existing place. 

        Dynamic, as she explains, is then the energy flow of that “place,” the build-up where energy not perceived by the subject generates a coming forth; for Freud, this means via dreams, puns, literature, etc. These pent-up notions appear in obscurity and illogically, reinforcing Freud’s theory of repressed desire.  

        Systematic then depicts Freud’s later revisions, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego, where sources of each element are gathered to make them understandable as one subject; although employed by Americans as “ego psychology”, the model furthers analytical development due to its contradictions. 

        Meltzer explains Lacan’s point of view in rejecting Freud’s revision, ” The French, however, led primarily by the analyst Jacques Lacan will see the revision as a repression in itself”(6). For Lacan, Freud’s topographical model is accurate; he asserts that there is a partition between the conscious and unconscious. As Meltzer clarifies, the ego for him is an object rather than a subject. As such, the ego is separate from desire, and instead, it is the derivative of desire. Meltzer notes that “the subject experiences desire as a lack, which they will strain to eradicate “(11). 

         In this way, the subject constantly advances movement between self and the fulfillment of one’s desires but disables the ability to actualize completion. Freud’s theory proposes that completion is an underlying preexistent reality just hiding in plain sight, which enables the subject to become themselves through decoding such desires.