Academics speak out in support of Judith Butler

Yesterday we published a response from Judith Butler to an attack on her published in the Jerusalem Post. The Post article reported on a campaign to pressure the prestigious Theodor Adorno Prize to rescind an honor for Butler over her criticism of Israel. Several fellow academics wrote letters to the Post in support of Butler and none were published. The authors shared the letters with us and we publish them below.

Etienne Balibar –

Sir,

I am informed that a campaign is now waged in Germany and other countries against the fact that Professor Judith Butler has been awarded the prestigious Adorno Prize of the City of Frankfurt, which she is due to receive on September 11, and that you are intent on commenting on this campaign and its possible resonance among intellectuals in the world. For what it is worth, I want to join the voices (in the many, I hope) who will express the opinion that Professor Butler well deserves the honor that she is now receiving, and that it would be unthinkable – indeed shameful – that a political campaign under a moral disguise pushes the City of Frankfurt and the committee of eminent personalities awarding it to withdraw the prize that they have conferred. Not that Professor Butler is not a controversial thinker and public intellectual: she is, by all means, as were, one way or another, all the previous recipients. But the Adorno Prize is not meant to express a mere recognition of unanimous admiration: in the spirit of its namegiver, it is meant to acknowledge the fact that an artist or a philosopher has embarked on the risky task of thinking and committing herself on the most torturing issues of the present, and raised it to a level of intellectual creation, ethical responsibility and political awareness that forces anyone to rethink her (or his) position. Few contemporary philosophers match this definition: Butler unmistakably does. The dramatic issues of the “colonization” of Palestine and the characterization of what it means and imposes to belong to the “Jewish people” are not – far from – the only domains in which she exercises this capacity, although it is becoming increasingly clear that they communicate with all other aspects of her cultural criticism and philosophical anthropology. In this, as in other cases, she displays a rare combination of generous commitment to collective emancipatory movements and absolute independence of personal thought, and speech. This is what liberates others instead of blindly enrolling them in a “cause”, however just it can appear, and makes it completely possible to engage in contradictory debate. This is just what any censorship would now repress. And it is, I believe, what the City of Frankfurt courageously wanted to promote.

I am perfectly aware that my support for Professor Butler’s nomination can be perceived as part of a counter-lobbying initiative. This is the vicious circle of ideological disputes. I belong to no organization or network. I have my own (many) agreements and (few, but not insignificant) disagreements with Professor Butler’s analyzes and choices, as do most intellectuals who try to wage critical theory today (in this, of course, always trying to ascertain the continuous relevance of the original kritische Theorie as inaugurated by Adorno and Horkheimer). Whatever your personal preferences, I trust that you will want to inform your readers that this point of view is shared by a very large community of scholars throughout the world.

Sincerely,

Etienne Balibar
Emeritus Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy, University of Paris-Nanterre
Emeritus Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine
Distinguished Anniversary Chair in the Humanities, Kingston University, London

Lynne Segal –

The Jerusalem Post

Dear Benjamin Weinthal,

It has only just been brought to my attention that there is a small campaign to deprive Professor Judith Butler of the Adorno Prize in Frankfurt, next month, on the grounds that she is anti-Semitic. This is an extraordinary turn of events when I and all of the colleagues I work with at the University of London can think of no-one more deserving of the prize.

Alongside the extraordinary breadth and originality of her philosophical work, this is not least because of her keen interest in anti-Semitism and her extremely significant reflections on the history of Jewish thought in the context of an anti-racist ethical practice. No-one knows better than Professor Butler that the struggle against anti-Semitism continues to be one of the most important
struggles of our time and that it needs to be grasped in the context of a broader battle against racism or any other form of systematic disrespect for any group of people. This is why she has written so often and so well on these matters. In particular she is at her most compelling in illustrating why the provocative naming of those who criticise Israel as anti-Semitic is one of the worst things that could happen to the struggle against anti-Semitism. I know I speak on behalf of tens of thousands of eager readers of Professor Butler’s work in expressing this opinion. She is indeed one of our lodestars in reminding us of the importance of anti-Semitism in particular, as well as of anti-racism in general in the struggle for a peaceful world.

Yours sincerely,
Lynne Segal

Lynne Segal
Anniversary Professor, Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London

Anat Matar –

Dear Mr. Weinthal,

I’m writing to you regarding the petition against giving Judith Butler the annual Adorno Award.

The petition includes many false accusations, esp. the allegation that Butler supports the annihilation of Israel. Ignoring such prominenet voices in South Africa who point at the Apartheid-like reality in Israel-Palestine, and in fact ignoring the complex political reality in the area in general, the petitioners draw a distorted picture of Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” (as if Israel hasn’t been an occupying power for 45 years, as if the occupied Palestinians have citizen rights, as if Egypt hasn’t evolved into a democracy…). They go on and accuse Butler of antisemitic positions; they falsely claim that she has called for the boycott of Jewish academics, and – as Zionists often do – they abuse the memory of the Shoah and use Shoah survivors in order to cover for all their lies.

I have no idea who these petitioners are. In fact it seems that there are only 26 of them – but they are certainly not “scholars for peace in the Middle East”. I believe it would only be fair to simply ignore this defamational and marginal petition and avoid covering it in the Jerusalem Post.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Anat Matar
The Dept. of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University