Willing the impossible: an interview with Judith Butler

In politics, sometimes the thing that will never happen actually starts to happen, preparing the ground for transformation. Judith Butler on the Israel/Palestine conflict and her recent book Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. 

Originally published at Transformation, a new section of openDemocracy. 

Judith Butler, Maxine Eliot Professor in Comparative Literature. 

By now, Judith Butler is used to improbable accusations. Among other things, she has been called a “useful idiot” for anti-Semites, a supporter of terrorism and – that old classic – a self-hating Jew.

These kinds of allegations are rarely levelled against post-structuralist philosophers. Yet the Maxine Eiliot professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California holds a special kind of renown within the academy. Her work on conflict, gender and the nation-state has dramatically transformed the way we think about society.

And unlike most other theorists, she also publically advocates for the delicate, deeply contentious standpoint of the anti-Zionist Jew. Because of this, Butler's every public move is scrutinised and dogged by censure. Her talk in February 2013 at Brooklyn College on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement met a particularly vociferous backlash. The stress, Butler tells me, led her to cancel speaking for a season. Read more.