Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zeynep Gambetti is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogaziçi University.
Leticia Sabsay is Assistant Professor in the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zeynep Gambetti is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogaziçi University.
Leticia Sabsay is Assistant Professor in the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zeynep Gambetti is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogaziçi University.
Leticia Sabsay is Assistant Professor in the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Bare Subjectivity: Faces, Veils, and Masks in the Contemporary Allegories of Western Citizenship
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Published:October 2016
Elsa Dorlin, 2016. "Bare Subjectivity: Faces, Veils, and Masks in the Contemporary Allegories of Western Citizenship", Vulnerability in Resistance, Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, Leticia Sabsay
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This chapter conceptualizes bareness in a contemporary context where the dialectic between seeing and being seen or unseen has defined social recognition. To analyze this new regime of civility, it looks at the recent European “veil wars.” How have the right to see and the privilege to disappear generated a norm of Western citizenship? Some faces “made bare” become socially vulnerable, and laws that prohibit concealing the face in public have contributed to constructing minorities as veiled and thus as conspirators the state must unveil. Simultaneously, an allegorical representation of justice with a visible yet blindfolded face has coexisted with references to heroes who are masked but also gifted with supersight. How do these representations of the concealment of the face in Western popular culture allow us to understand new modalities of subjectivation? This chapter illustrates this point through the study of two popular representations of vigilantes: Wonder Woman and the video game “Hey Baby!”
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