Dr Birgit Schippers, a political theorist at St Mary’s University College, presented a research paper at the Political Studies Association Annual International Conference in Belfast. Guest speakers included David Blunkett MP, John Bercow MP and Martin McGuinness MP MLA.
Dr Schippers' paper was titled "Radical Politics or Ethics: Violence and Non-Violence in Judith Butler’s Recent Political Thought".In the proposal for her paper, Dr Schippers wrote:
"The concept of violence has received much attention in recent political theory. It also figures prominently in Judith Butler’s current writings on international political philosophy, ethics and post-9/11 politics. These texts can be read as Butler’s topical response to the so called war on terror, to the racialised and gendered discourse on terrorism and the framing of bodily vulnerability. Increasingly in her recent work, she poses fundamental questions about the role of violence in the formation of subjects and communities, and about the prospects for an ethics of non-violence. It is the aim of my paper to elucidate an apparent paradox in her argument: while she posits violence as generative, granting it a formative role in subject and community constitution, she also advocates an ethics of non-violence. Butler’s response to this paradox, invoking an ethics of responsibility, and seeking recourse to the subversive displacement of the violence of norms, is an intriguing one. However, I want to suggest a more nuanced consideration of violence’s disruptive and generative features as a way out of this impasse. Such an approach, I will argue, will strengthen the radical political strand in Butler’s thought, which has been neglected in her recent turn to ethics".