[Music] you [Music] hello and welcome to this introduction to cultural studies lecture and NPT ho and we just began about to begin a new text today in this particular lecture and the text which we'll start with today is only screen it's called gender trouble feminism and a subversion of identity by Judith Butler so we just finished the series of texts and looking at the different configurations of culture and cultural identities and postmodern conditions in colonial conditions except Rob so this particular lecture is going to be written to same because they're gonna it's going to take off a new direction in terms of cultural studies and way in which cultural identities are produced and reproduced and generated and manufactured through gender identities so this collusion between culture and gender or something that this particular book does very well examines very well I think and we're gonna look at it quite closely in great details in terms of understanding how gender becomes the Reiki concern a very key issue in cultural studies it's the butler just before we begin with this particular text a few sentences a few lines in Butler and Jenny Butler is one of those figures one of the seminal figures actually who struggled post-modernism post structuralism as well as gender studies and gender identities and she's someone who people have moved wrong in terms of looking at masculinity femininity masculine identities feminine identities and the production of identities to agenda medium yeah in popular culture in in or discursive situations etc so she is famous for many terms that she has sort of pioneered and revolutionized performativity is one the key terms that she keeps you know going back to if the forum activity is obviously one of the one of those terms again which connect post-modernism with post structuralism and then of course with Gender Studies as well so this particular book could be a really key text for us in terms of looking at how gender is a cultural construct in terms of how gender has a cultural reproduction a cultural process of production and reproduction and what this book highlights among many times is the artificiality of the entire idea of gender so how gender is basically a process of performance which attempts to conform to certain codes which are topical to but culture particular space-time so this particular book you know gender trouble and of course very title is quite provocative trouble is a very provocative term and Butler deliberately uses it and at some point in the book and we look at the particular section she explains a choice of the word trouble and why did she choose the word trouble to understand his general trouble to what extent can we trouble the idea of gender the accepted idea of gender which is obviously what Butler sets out to do in this particular text so this particular book could be seen could be read as a very delicious deconstruction of the idea of gender the normative idea of gender and an examination at very urgent examination of how gender is constructed on produce and manipulated to a certain kind of cultural codes and of course the culture towards depend on a series of factors including but not limited to race economy language you know religion etc and again we've back to this sort of one of the key things that we've been running through this particular goals and that is looking at culture as an entanglement and I was symmetric entanglement between abstraction and materiality so gender doom the fits bill in terms of it being an entanglement that in abstraction and materiality is the very material sort of determinate a very material component of agenda which implies the series of factors such as the body language etc and it's also a sort of abstract component of gender which is part of the discursive design and with gender sort of operates so this book is really interesting and very very crucial for any senior study of culture and we look at it in flows details in this particular terms the recent lectures coming up so let's begin in the very beginning of this particular book gender trouble by Judith Butler so the very outset Butler talks about how to what extent is gender a category you know so what is he sort of the the ontology of the category of gender and it is a series of quotations that she offers the very beginning and it should be on the screen at the moment so the Salon de Beauvoir you know Christie Bob Louie Erie Gary Michel Foucault so these are a thinker these are intellectuals of the she draws on and also critiques at various points of this particular book and one of the really key things in this particular book is a very thorough examination of different so different definitions of gender at different points of time by different philosophers including before Chris era era Gary and Foucault and she looks at the differences in terms of you know the idea of gender as defined by these thinkers she draws on and critiques as well as now so he constructs the different definitions agenda across different points of time by various thinkers and of course Monique would take also features quite heavily in this particular text now at the very beginning she talks about you know two very key terms which are sort of germane to entire the entire umbrella term of cultural studies and the two terms of politics and representation right and then Michigan's also defined the difference between the two terms so what is politics or what is representation and of course representation as a know is a really crucial category I mean we've read a pop up we have read a series of other thinkers and writers where representation becomes very key thing I'm a little talk to talks about representation and rape and it pulls modern kind of a way but only a butler sets out to define the rape sort of difference between no ontological difference between politics and representation in terms of their location and Gender Studies so she goes on to say one one hand representation serves as the operative term within a political process the seeks to extend visibility and legitimacy the woman has political subjects on the other representation is a normative function of language which is said either to reveal or to distort what is assumed to be true about the category of woman so we have this apparent dichotomy and the description of defamation so the one hand a representation is the legitimizing process you know it's a process through which a particular subject is alleged Mises made visible you know and the representation of woman can be seen as a process to which woman emerges political subjects so that's the positive definition of representation and or something which interests legitimacy to woman something which gives visibility you invest visibility to woman and something which invests does entire subjectivity a woman as political subjects but on the other hand representation is also a normative function which is set to reveal or distort what is assumed to be true about the category of woman's representation is really a very complex process because in one hand it can be an emancipatory factor it can be an emancipatory process which offers agency to the subject it has an agenda function it offers for each agency legend to see exception but on the other hand representation can also be constricting in a sense that you know it can restrict the subject to the normative function that is defined by you know the dominant categories of knowledge and it is also used sometimes selectively to reveal or distort what is assumed to be true about the category of woman so the word assumed over here is very very interesting and very important so there's a set of assumptions and economy of assumptions and economic expectations which sort of invested into this normative definition a woman and representation can sometimes consolidate that economy it can reveal that economy it can distort that economy can also consolidated economies the representation becomes a very crucial term for Butler at the very beginning of this particular books it is a two-way process it can be emancipatory it can be legitimizing it can also be restrictive it can also sort of conform to the courts the dominant courts have conned out the dominant chords of so ontological codes which define the woman so representation can be liberating as well as constricting representation can be a positive term it can be revolutionary it can offer agency it can offer legitimacy by the same time it can also be restrictive so it's a very interesting term that bottle up sort of officers chose arise at the very beginning of this particular book and one of the things which will notice about this book it's very provocative he's almost designed to be provocative and the raid lies the radical nature this particular book the radical quality of the book lies precisely in this provocative quality and in a bottle of makes it very very clear and we just read if remember we just read up France panel we're also provoke ition you know the idea of being provocative becomes the discursive practice e in that particular book so you know Faneuil is very provocative I mean he makes this descent very clear it makes his resentment very very clear and it makes the subject position the subjectivity is very very clear to all the particular book and therein lies the radical nature of black skin white marks which we just finished now if we look at bot lab sheet considers flying which takes language very seriously in terms of a component of gender so blank which becomes very crucial component of gender and again no we're looking at an entanglement between apps trapper rotors the material processes so how use language how how do you sort of conform to language and how was language itself a gendered quality a gendered process and gendered Kat cream so these are things which are examined in great details very radical ways in this particular book if we look at this highlighted section in the screen but should be in the screen in the moment while she says the domains the political and linguistic representation set out in advance the criterion by which subjects themselves are formed which with the result that representation is extended only to what can be acknowledged as a subject in other words the qualifications of being a subject must first be met before representation can be extended so we are immediately into a very controversial zones and she says a representation can only come after legitimacy so a subject must confirm must meet the standards must meet expectations in off a particular category before representation can be extended so representation becomes part of the legitimizing process however representation is oftentimes more often than not part of the dominant discursive strategy and what when I say dominant discuss strategy I mean there is a human subject must conform to the dominant discourse before it can be represented before it can receive representation so representation becomes sometimes quite collusive with the dominant discourses of knowledge dominant discourses agenda of dominant discourses of politics etc the representation can become you know more often than not a part of status quo a part of the dominant codes so the first expectation of the subject the first sort of aspiration of the subject in the rain' normative sense would be to satisfy on meet the expectations after which only after the subject is acknowledged as a subject can representation come into being so representation is post acknowledgement process so subject needs to be acknowledged first as a subjective subject must conform first as a subject only then can representation come into being as a process so if we I mean Butler is very cautious and regarded in terms of looking at representation as a purely liberation or kind of a process so she says no often an odd representation is an extended process of legitimization representation as an extension of status quo extension of dominant discourses etcetera because subject must first conform before it can get represented so representation more often than not is part of the dominant strategy and then she talks about regulation and how regulation becomes the very key term a tricky category in terms of gender in terms of gender identity in terms of gendered representation and she goes on the same that a subject is subjected to this ideas of regulation regulation of structures they are subjected to them from defined and reproduced in accordance with the requirements of those structures if this analysis is right then then a juridical information the traditional information of language and politics the represent woman as a subject of feminism is itself a discursive formation an effect of a given version of representation on politics and a feminist subject turns out to be discursive Lee constituted by the very political system that is supposed to facilitate its emancipation so at the very beginning of Jenner trouble she's looking at how the idea of liberation the idea of emancipation can sometimes be consumed within the courts which inform the dominant discursive strategies so she goes on to say that you know the very act of subjectification is actually part of the discursive system see the feminist subject turns out to be discursive Lee constituted at the rate political system that is supposed to facilitate as emancipation so the reign political system which supposes which is supposed to emancipate or facilitate the emancipation of woman is actually you know part of the discursive strategy so you know he can't really escape discursivity that's the key message in this particular a lotta sections the discursive atiba comes the hegemony condition and so the entire idea of feminism entirely of feminine subjectivity can actually sometimes more often than not be consumed by the discursive routine which informs that particular process so true liberation can actually come with the questioning of the discursivity and more often than not the feminist objectivity is actually part of the dominant discursive strategy and it can't escape that it can't escape the discursivity which over determines its subjectivity so discursivity becomes a very important of qualification very important category in butler and she looks at the ways in which discursivity should be questioned and how discursive lee oftentimes consumes any effort to emancipate any effort to liberate and how all this liberation all strategies emancipatory strategies are actually embedded by discursivity by dominant discursivity so it becomes part of status quo rather than being truly radical in radicalism can actually sometimes become refight and become extensions of status quo become extensions of dominant strategies okay and then of course she moves on to the question of the subject so the question of subject is obviously crucial in terms of looking at feminism in terms of look at masculinity in terms of looking and patriarchy etc and subject is a very key term and cultural studies in general so we are very interested in a subject or subjectivity or subject position or subject hood or the formation of subjects and cultural studies because that's what I mean related to subject we have this entire area of other components such as agency you know liberation hegemony power knowledge etc and then she goes on to say the question of the subject is crucial for politics and for feminist politics in particular because judicial subjects invariably produce to certain exclusionary practices they do not show once the judicial structure of politics has been established in other words the political construction of the subject proceeds were certain legitimate alleged mating and exclusionary aims and these political operations were effectively concealed and naturalized by a political analysis that takes judicial structures as a foundation so the key words over here I mean one thing which we should be really interested in looking at general trouble is that many Butler's use of verbs are very very important and then she places the greatest emphasis on verbs that part of speech that she's most interested in because for her the entirety of gender is a process of becoming unbecomingly becoming so those become very important in Baptist discuss so you know we need to examine the verbs very carefully and any description about the offices so if you look at this particular section and highlighted in yellow where she talks about the idea of naturalization construction and then you know concealment except from so all these are verbs and this is exactly the way in which she argues you know real legitimizing function reeled emancipatory function are actually the face to it and she goes on the same that every subject every subject formation proceeds so it operates through certain codes and those chords are concealed those codes are exclusive those codes are you know not part of the knot foregrounded actually because then obviously the whole point of being a dominant discourse is to conceal the chords so every subject formation every actor subject formation is basically a set of Confirmation to certain codes but those codes itself are concealed those ports themselves you can see those codes are naturalized and the process of naturalization is very important and Popular's analysis because if it are naturalize the codes that obviously is very difficult to be hegemony so the whole idea of something becoming hegemony is about process of naturalization so naturalization and tangles acceptance naturalization and contains acknowledgement naturalization entails pledge to machine so naturalization is something which cannot be questioned rights if you naturalize something you take it for granted here's unit without question again so that conceals its constructed quality so that's the whole idea the butler is trying to foreground and highlight to a young so she she argues how the whole idea of creating a code which becomes the jiminy and operates through concealment and naturalization the concealment and naturalization become really crucial categories and Butler in terms of looking at how gender identities are produced and reproduce and consolidated right so we have this idea of hegemony gender which is oftentimes more often than not heterosexual and quality citizen tie a heterosexual in general operates two acts of concealment and two acts of naturalization which make it make other kinds of gender identities marginalized right so the whole idea of something becoming hegemony in street process of naturalization and concealment that's these are a clue crucial categories in Butler's analysis and then she goes on to say a judicial power inevitably produces what it claims merely to represent hence politics must be concerned with a dual function of power the judicial and the productive so when you're looking at many questioning the entire discursive power we need to examine the judicial quality of power is reproductive quality of power because what she says away the judicial power inevitably produces what it claims merely to represent the production and representation are often merged in dominant discourses here produced certain rules he produced certain laws we produce certain codes and then those codes are used to represent human subjects so again we're back where we began the razor out said in this particular book how representation actually becomes extensions of power extensions the productive power etc so representation and production often merge together in dominant discourses so the rules which are produced the courts which have produced are then used for representation so those those courts themselves become the courts of representations and of course the production that courts the representation of emerge and hegemony discourse is not something butler goes on to define the very beginning of this particular book so representation production concealment naturalization this becomes very crucial categories for bottle up and you know she looks at his categories over and over again in terms of how these are you sorry effectively in terms of defining hegemony gender identities so the general identities obviously produced the production becomes very important your category in gender identities general identities are represented so representation becomes a very important category in gender studies now the point is a butler would argue a ivory effectively and this is part of the radical thing that she does in this particular book that is the course of production the way in which produced certain codes hegemony codes and a course of representation they often merge in terms of looking and general identities some general identities are often produced and represented someone famously to a certain hegemony and dominant codes and therein lies the process of construction of hegemony in general identities which is obviously naturalized right so if we can naturalize the process if we can conceal the constructed quality of the process then obviously you won't notice the difference between production and representation you know you look at it in the same thing you look at it as one part one given one I know dominant given which happens which operates without any any act of construction right and this is exactly the triumph of an in dominant discourse and that it manages to conceal is constructed quality right by merging is active production an exactor representation right so this merge is very very important and Papa spent several time on this examining this particular merge now obviously as I mentioned and verbs become very important but Lots analysis and then you know she's wavering and looking at how certain codes that concealed certain courts are smuggled into what become you know hegemony can dominant in due course of time Truax of reputation through acts the representation true acts of concealment sir concealment representation reputation nationalizations always become very important a processes in buttress analysis of gender and gender identities because you know we're back again so what we started when we mentioned the very beginning of this particular course the production is a very crucial time and culture and cultural studies because culture identities or culture itself is an act of production right and also back to representation so you know when obviously this process of production happens through very materialistic ways it incorporates a lot of material apparatus it incorporates a lot of apps to the characters and it's a process of entanglement or materiality and abstraction however for a culture to become consolidated to become hegemony it must naturalize its process it must naturalizes it's constructed quality you know it's constructed quality must be concealed in front of the subject so subject just consumes the hegemony structure without realizing at sequence what it can only happen in the process of production and a process representation merged together and to becoming one given one automatic assumption one automatic given which is consumed and received without questioning okay now and what to say is part of the process part of the success of dominant general identities happens because of text-based Pickers that becomes impossible to separate how gender from the political and cultural intersections in which they are invariably it is environment produced and maintained so this is on your screen highlighted in yellow where she says that you know part of the process in which this entire idea of dominant gendered identities become possible or become successful is by making it impossible to separate our gender from the politics of representation and a politics of production right so it is I mean gender is obviously produced general identity is obviously produced through certain very very you know coded acts very coded configurations however this after production merges seamlessly into an actor representation and this seamlessness is a very crucial thing in dominant and generative identities so you know the themes must never be exposed right so it is impossible to separate gender from the political and cultural intersections and which is inevitably produce and maintain right and Butler says it is part of both watchlists discourse is part of the deconstructed these constructions two skills are looking at gender you know we should examine precisely this cultural configurations as cultural productions this cultural constructivist which informed the process in general identities so unless we can do that no serious study of gender is possible and then she goes on to say the political assumption that must be that it must be a universal basis for feminism one which must be found in an identity assumed to exist cross culturally often accompanies the notion that the oppression of woman has some singular form discernible in a universal or a genetic structure a patriarchy of masculine domination the notion of a universal patriarchy has been widely criticized in recent years for his failure to account for the workings of gender oppression in concrete cultural context in which it exists so but Laval reminds us of the risk of universalization one of the one of the dangers when the pitfalls are universalization lies precisely in is in a doing away with the topicality of discourses the spatiotemporal the contextual quality of discourses so she wants us against looking at patriarchy as a meta phenomenon or femininity as a meta phenomenon or masculinity as a meta phenomenon and she reminds us that we must be critical of the tendency to totalize of the tendency to universalize these discourses writes the entire idea of having a universal idea of feminism a universal idea of masculine identity patriarchal identity et cetera or even the narrator's of oppression you know so these actually to Butler a very very risky categories because that what it does is it does wave with the topicality of the even the topicality of the subject position or the subjectivity of some deposition which then becomes the refat category and the universalize underscores universalizing is a tendency the butler warns us against in this particular book very very crucially and then of course I mean the whole idea is to look at gender as a process which is tied to a particular you know cultural condition decide to a particular spatiotemporal condition unless you can do that we run the risk of reification we run the risk of totalization which obviously will be consumed very very quickly by the dominant discourses which operate on totalizing tendencies as well the case the totalization our universalization our tendencies a bottle of warns us against right sir and then again she goes on to say and this is on a screen in the moment highlighted in yellow the presumption of a binary gender system implicitly retains a belief in a magnetic relation of gender two sexes were about gender mirror sex or as otherwise restricted by it so again we now she's talking about the biological idea of gender and the cultural idea of gender and then she talks about how the presumption of a binary gender system and a male/female heterosexual homosexual implicitly retains a belief in a match relation and gender to sex agenda and biology they are served magnetically related in dominant discourses according to Butler and that is something that she questions when the constructed status in general is theorized as a radically independent of sex gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice with the consequence that a man in mask line might just as easily signify a female body as a male one and woman and unfeminine a male body as easily as a female one so this is this is the rayandchrista user post-racialism the Butler users over here does looking at gender studies and she says OEM that we must be we must be very very interested we must be examining the idea of biology biological sex and gender which is more for cultural category and we must see to the fact that an imagined mask line might be easily applicable to female body you know or as much after came with a few body as a main one and woman and feminine can be applicable to a male body as easily as a female one and this can only happen if you look at a non-binary a non-magnetic way of looking at gender so if you take gender has a non-magnetic and non-binary term only then can we look at a masculine or feminine is not over to the mind by balaji so therein lies the difference between gender and biological sex to Butler because being a man or a woman has nothing to do with being masculine or feminine because masculinity and femininity I mean these are constructions these are cultural constructions the behavioral constructions which pertain to certain codes of conduct and according to Butler the courts are very important and in the courts actually sometimes don't rely on biological gender and biological sex whether you're male or female doesn't matter in terms of look at masculinity or femininity so the terms masculinity or femininity can be applied to anyone irrespective of the biological sex and this is a very crucial category a very crucial examination the Butler offers and general trouble and she sort of develops his idea she didn't lost his argument for this particular book as in Iran so already we are in the domain of construction we in the domain a performativity we are the domain of my messes and she performativity becomes a very important category in Butler she goes on to say very very crucially that you know biological sex gender you know half off times no relation at all to each other and we must look beyond a very bad whisky understanding of gender and look at gender as a more pure allistic plastic performative idea whereby maleness or femaleness or femininity or masculinity this can operate independently of biological sex and this is a very radical in the butler sets out to state in this particular book so and then she goes on to same highlight in yellow on a screen that a body is a cell for construction as an emeritus that constituted the domain of gendered some subjects bodies cannot be said to have a signified will existence prior to the mark of the gender the question emerges to what extent does the body come into being and to the marks of gender how do we conceive how do you how do you reckon see the body no longer as a passive medium or instrument awaiting the in livening capacity of a distinctly in in material will the body becomes the very crucial site for Butler a crucial space for Butler it can be a potentially a subversive site it can be a conforming site it can be a sideway which conforms certain carats it can be a side which questions the chords etc so the body becomes a verb to Butler so the body is being the body is a process in Butler's discouraged so this is again part of what is it said that we need to be aware we need to pay rate careful attention to the wave verbs flow and buttless works and especially in general trouble so the body becomes the verb that what it becomes a process being and becoming Reid coming unbecoming to different discursive formations so it's a construction but it goes not the same the body is a server construction as an emeritus that constitute the domain of gendered sub subjects so general subjects are constructions and no constructions to certain bodies apparatus so discourses to our bodies and qualities importance cannot be said to have a signifier in existence prior to the mark of the gender right so it's erroneous Butler would argue the bodies are three discursive rights the bodies of discursive and quality so the discursivity a body is something that Butler highlights the way up so question emerges to what extent does the body come into being and through the marks of gender so bodies coming to being through certain markers agenda and those markers agenda obviously culturally constructed discuss will be constructed so the body becomes feminine and masculine sometimes irrespective of biological sex and this is again a very poor stretches way of looking at gender the bodies come to being to certain markers mediated by these markers which obviously culturally constructed and a second question which follows from this naturally is how do we agree conceived the body no longer as a passive medium or instrument awaiting the in livening capacity offer distinctly a met immaterial will so how can we look at body as not a passive site but an active site of interrogation an active site of contestation and this is currently Butler the very radical way in which we can question the the codes of conduct which pertain to dominant discourses agenda but making the body an active site of conversation an actress art of questioning rather than a passive medium of receiving discourses receiving decodes the conduct receiving the dominant codes which are constructed culturally so rather than being a passive receptacle to the codes the body can potentially become according to Butler a site of questioning herself conversation and therein lies a subversive potential of gender subversive potential of performativity the performativity is very embodied phenomenon which questions the reconstructed quality of gendered codes gender identities and the records of conduct which are culturally constituted and constructed so this concludes the first lecture on Butler's gender trouble and we serve we began to look at the way in which gender becomes a construct we can which can be deconstructed to play to trouble to problematize an entire idea of you know van restrictive way of looking at gender and to make gender less and less seamless more and more constructed and quality there you can do that according to Butler you know then we can look at gender as what really is a set of codes which the body performs and conforms to you at different points of time so I can through the first lecture on Butler's in general trouble with this and will continue with this in the next lectures to come thank you for your attention [Music] you [Music]