"What is at stake is less a theory of cultural construction then a consideration of the scenography and topography of construction. This scenography is orchestrated by and as a matrix of power that remains disarticulated if we presume constructedness and materiality as necessarily oppositional notions."
WHAT. THE. FUCK. I AM SUPPOSED TO UNDERSTAND THIS. SHE (JUDITH BUTLER, AKA THE DEVIL) GOES ON LIKE THIS FOR PAGES AND PAGES AND PAGES.
To give you an idea of how fucked MY brain feels, even spellcheck in blogspot does not recognise three words contained in the statement above. BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT REAL. Butler is fucking with my brain. Tonight, the only homework I set for myself was to read the Butler articles that I struggled through on Sunday because I was too tired to understand. Well, I thought it was because I was too tired. I know now that it is because she is a mental.
Seriously, I have another quote:
"I want to ask how and why "materiality" has become a sign of irreducibility, that is, how is it the materiality of sex is understood as that which only bears cultural constructions and, therefore, cannot be a construction? What is the status of this exclusion? Is materiality a site or surface that is excluded from the process of construction, as that through which and on which construction works?"
AND I WANT TO ASK YOU WHAT THE HELL YOU MEAN. Honestly, both of those quotes are only from one page of "Bodies that Matter", imagine what the whole reading is like.
Sob. I wish somebody else was the most important theorist of performativity instead of ole Judith here. You know, someone who wrote a little more in my realm of comprehension. I mean, I'm sure Judith Butler is a genius (she obviously thinks she is very clever, judging by her alarming use of big words) but it is too hard for my simple little brain.
Gill Valentine, on the other hand, is my homegirl.
P.S. Above quotes taken from the text I am supposed to be taking notes on right now, Judith Butler's "Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of sex", Routledge, 1993. In case you wanted some light reading.