Butler Antigone

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Butler Antigones Claim

• A Heroine for Our Time?...

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Hostility to theory usually means an opposition
to other people's theories and an oblivion of
ones own. (Eagleton Introduction to Theory viii)
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Agenda

• Oral Reports
• Dos and Donts
• Recap and Update
• Definitions, Applications
• Antigones Claim
• Families (a quote)
• Antigones Claim
• Analysis
• Take Away
• Antigone on Butler, on Sexuality/Gender

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Oral Reports

• Dos and Donts

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Oral-Report Dos

• Content
• organize
• summarize
• clarify
• critique
• prompt
• Presentation
• pace
• modulate
• rehearse

• Outline/PowerPoint
• frame
• structure
• SIMPLIFY!

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Outline/PowerPoint Necessities

• Title slide
• title
• date
• presenters
• Content / illustrative slides
• Bibliography

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Something Wrong?...

• An oral report should at all costs seek to avoid
  serving the function of content delivery
• Complete sentences on screen will not be read by
  audience they deaden the effect
• Strive for simple transitions
• Remember The oral spiel is the thing
• umm, uhhh..
• The outline merely structures and enhances

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Recap and Update

• Definitions, Applications

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Your turn What is

• Sexuality?
• traits not specific to biological sex
• sex not same as sexuality
• choice (free will)
• sexual preference
• chemical makeup in brain
• affects feelings with respect to sexual
  attraction
• performative dimension?
• social construction
• sexuality as created by society
• sexuality in response mindset
• what it means, symbolic dimension
• can be a combo (bio/social)

• Gender?
• male v female
• biological sex
• role, self-presentation
• blur lines
• non-biological anatomy
• psychol.
• a mindset
• as category
• political, social, symbolic

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Antigones Claim

• Families (a quote)

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For a woman who is a single mother and has her
child without a man, is the father still there, a
spectral position or place that remains
unfilled? (Butler Antigones Claim 69)
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Quote Responses

• depends on society and culture
• father a social construction
• father-figure doesnt need to be there
• not an imperative

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Antigones Claim

• Analysis

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Contents

• Antigones Claim (1 ff.)
• sets up different interpretations
• Unwritten Laws, Aberrant Traditions (27 ff.)
• talks about language performs
• Hegels, Lacans interpretations a critique
• Promiscuous Obedience (57 ff.)
• Bs reflections in relation to cont. problems

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Structure, Argument

• Problem(s) / issue(s) / scope
• ants role in other interpretations
• Argumentation
• that play offers insight into contemp issues
• explores how society reacts to transgression
• past treatments fail to recognize prepolitical
  aspect
• Conclusions

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Take Away

• Antigone on Butler, on Sexuality/Gender

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Questions

• Does play validate sexuality/gender as
• essence?
• social construction?
• Does play validate view of family as
• socially embedded symbol?
• morally absolute?

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Answers