Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly

One of the boldest and most radical thinkers of our time, Butler (Bodies That Matter) examines the contemporary state of popular sovereignty, resistance, and other “concerted actions,” as Hannah Arendt termed them, of political engagement in this series of essays expanding on her theory of performativity. Looking at recent mass protests, including events in Tahrir Square and the various Occupy movements, she explores what freedom of assembly entails in different spaces—public, private, confined, and virtual—while focusing on how individuals can take actual, not simply rhetorical, political action. In doing so, she draws on Arendt’s concept of the political, Emmanuel Levinas’s concept of ethical obligation, and Theodor Adorno’s timeless question: can one “lead a good life in a bad life?” Mounting a defense of the right to assembly and of the practices of radical democracy, Butler concludes, “Bodies are not self-enclosed kinds of entities” and “our shared exposure to precarity is but one ground of our potential equality and our reciprocal obligations to produce together conditions of livable life.” Her analysis emphasizes the potential for popular movements, rather than nation-states, to establish this equality. She also provides a compelling argument in favor of nonviolence as a political tactic. Butler’s examination of popular sovereignty and public assembly is incisive and exigent. (Nov.)