Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence [Paperback]

Judith Butler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1844675440 | ISBN-13: 978-1844675449 | Publication Date: August 17, 2006

Judith Butler responds to the current US policies to wage perpetual war and calls for deeper understanding.

In her most impassioned and personal book to date, Judith Butler responds in this profound appraisal of post-9/11 America to the current US policies to wage perpetual war, and calls for a deeper understanding of how mourning and violence might instead inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“It’s clear that its author is still interested in stirring up trouble — academic, political and otherwise.” (Bookforum )

“A book that shines with the splendor of engaged thought.” (Brooklyn Rail )

“Here is a unique voice of courage and conceptual ambition that addresses public life from the perspective of psychic reality, encouraging us to acknowledge the solidarity and the suffering through which we emerge as subjects of freedom.” (Homi K. Bhabha )

“Judith Butler is quite simply one of the most probing, challenging, and influential thinkers of our time.” (J.M. Bernstein )

About the Author

Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Verso (August 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844675440
• ISBN-13: 978-1844675449
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Psychic Life of Power, Excitable Speech, Bodies that Matter, Gender Trouble, Frames of War, and with Slavoj Zizek and Ernesto Laclau, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality.






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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Moving, an Important Book of Our Day, December 23, 2009

By 

Amy E. Story (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence (Hardcover)

One of Butler's most accessible books, this is a phenomenally interesting and beautifully written investigation into human vulnerability and loss. Butler uses the political circumstances of the historical moment in which the book was written--just post 9/11, detainment of insurgents in Guantanamo Bay, and the crisis in the Middle East--to uncover the nature of human interdependency and to theorize what a political practice that takes such interdependency and vulnerability to others seriously might look like. While her examples might become slightly dated over time, her Levinasian analysis of the meaning of being human and of the kind of political and moral work needed to achieve true global peace will stand despite the passage of time. One note of criticism--some chapters are long and can get a little tedious after the first half of the book.

13 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provocative book, January 18, 2007

By 

J. Aragon "Feminist Educator" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (Paperback)

I read this book yesterday and just ate it up. It's not the usual esoteric examination by Butler. (Not that anything is wrong with that and I've read her other work, as well).

That said, the book is written for a lay audience and I think that this book needed to be published, since the responses of feminists to or after Sept 11th have been far and few. (Aftershock is a great book to read about Sept 11th from a feminist point of view).

I can't pinpoint what my favourite section of the book was, however, I enjoyed it all. It was refreshing to see a political theorist write about something "real" that is taking place today that many are discussing or living through.

This is a wonderful addition to her writing repertoire. I do hope to see her write more for a lay audience, since hopefully they will get their curiosity piqued and read more Butler.

23 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent social commentary, June 27, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Precarious Life: The Power of Mourning and Violence (Hardcover)

Judith Butler is a multi-talented scholar who can write for both specialized and general audiences (which is why many, I believe, envy her). This book is quite accessible and rightly so; it is concerned with the contemporary predicaments we are currently in at this point in history. An extremely important book, Butler's "Precarious Life" has much to offer.