The Job of Critical Thinking Now

Protest offers a vision of the future that refuses mere recovery

As with those other fault-lines, the problem is not new, as François Hartog reminds us when he writes of “presentism.” Sometime in the twentieth century, we lost our belief in the redemptive power of history and so in the guarantee of a better future. Wendy Brown puts it succinctly: “We know ...
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The Job of Critical Thinking Now

Gender and the Politics of Secularism

A conversation between Joan Wallach Scott and Judith Butler on Scott’s latest book Sex and Secularism

An excerpt from Joan Wallach Scott’s latest book Sex and Secularism can be found here. Judith Butler: Shall we start the interview? I am wondering whether you could describe the decision to work on a book on sex and secularism. What led up to that decision? How does this book follow from your The Politics ...
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Gender and the Politics of Secularism

Sex and Secularism

An excerpt from Joan Wallach Scott’s latest book

An interview between Judith Butler and Joan Wallach Scott can be found here. As I have studied it here, secularism is not an objective description of institutions and policies but rather a polemical term whose meanings change in the different contexts in which it is deployed. In this book I have ...
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Sex and Secularism