In the wake of the Global War on Terror, Judith Butler has written of the ‘precarity’ of life, of the inevitable vulnerability of one's life in the face of the actions of strangers. Refusing to accept this, the United States has developed a form of nationalism that claims invulnerability for its citizens while treating as expendable the lives of distant others who even unwittingly associate with those who threaten the US homeland. Butler has extended this set of criticisms to Israel's policy towards Palestinian people and in doing so has been criticised as anti-Semitic. She has engaged with these questions about Jewish identity, nationalism, and toleration through an engagement with writers of the Jewish diaspora, developing what we may describe as a geopolitical perspective on identity. The value of such a perspective was given ironic point by the public controversy over the award to Butler of the Adorno Prize in 2012. This paper argues also that in responding to the biopolitics of the Global War on Terror, Butler has elaborated on some of the geopolitical bases of identity and in doing so has illuminated the academic politics of the current Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign called for by many institutions of Palestinian civil society.
AdornoT W, 1991 [1969], “Resignation”, translated by BlomsterW, in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture Ed. BernsteinJ MAdornoT W (Routledge, London) pp 198–203
ArendtH, 1958The Origins of Totalitarianism2nd edition (World Publishing Company, New York)
10.
ArendtH, 1994 [1963] Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin, London)
11.
ArendtH, 2007a [1944], “Zionism reconsidered”, in Hannah Arendt: The Jewish Writings Ed. KohnJFeldmanR H (Schocken Books, New York) pp 343–374
12.
ArendtH, 2007b [1948], “To save the Jewish homeland”, in Hannah Arendt: The Jewish Writings Ed. KohnJFeldmanR H (Schocken Books, New York) pp 388–401
13.
ArendtH, 2007c [1948], “New Palestine party”, in Hannah Arendt: The Jewish Writings Ed. KohnJFeldmanR H (Schocken Books, New York) pp 417–419
14.
ArendtH, 2007d [1950], “Peace or armistice in the Near East”, in Hannah Arendt: The Jewish Writings Ed. KohnJFeldmanR H (Schocken Books, New York) pp 423–450
15.
ArendtH, 2007e [1944], “The Jew as pariah: A hidden tradition”, in Hannah Arendt: The Jewish Writings Ed. KohnJFeldmanR H (Schocken Books, New York) pp 275–297
16.
ArendtH, 2007f [1948], “About collaboration”, in Hannah Arendt: The Jewish Writings Ed. KohnJFeldmanR H (Schocken Books, New York) pp 414–416
17.
ArendtH, 2010 [1958], Yesodot Hatotalitariut [The Origins of Totalitarianism]2nd edition, translated by ZertalI (Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Tel Aviv)
BellamyE J, 1997Affective Genealogies: Psychoanalysis, Postmodernity, and the ‘Jewish Question’ after Auschwitz (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE)
21.
BenjaminW, 1996 [1921], “Critique of violence” translated by JephcottE, in Selected Writings: Volume 1: 1913–1926 Ed. BullockMJenningsM W (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 236–252
22.
BenjaminW, 2003a [1940], “On the concept of history” translated by ZohnH, in Selected Writings: Volume 4: 1938–1940 Ed. EilandHJenningsM W (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 389–400
23.
BenjaminW, 2003b [1940], “Paralipomena to ‘On the concept of History’” translated by JephcottEEilandH, in Selected Writings: Volume 4: 1938–1940 Ed. EilandHJenningsM W (Belknap Press, Cambridge MA) pp 401–411
BoyarinDBoyarinJ, 1993, “Diaspora: Generation and the ground of Jewish identity”Critical Inquiry19693–725
26.
BravoACerejaF, 2001 [1983], “The duty of memory” translated by GordonR, in Primo Levi: The Voice of Memory, Interviews 1961–87 Ed. BelpolitiMGordonR (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 218–249
27.
BruckE, 2001 [1976], “Jewish, up to a point” translated GordonR, in Primo Levi: The Voice of Memory, Interviews 1961–87 Ed. BelpolitiMGordonR (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 261–265
28.
ButlerJ, 1997aExcitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (Routledge, London)
29.
ButlerJ, 1997bThe Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA)
30.
ButlerJ, 1999a [1990] Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, New York)
31.
ButlerJ, 1999b, “Preface”, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity Ed. ButlerJ (Routledge, New York) pp vii–xxvi
Council for Higher Education, 2011, “Ben Gurion University, Department of Politics and Government: Evaluation Report”, Committee for the Evaluation of Political Science and International Relations Programs, September, che.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Ben-Gurion-University-7.pdf
45.
DebrixF, 2011, “Rethinking democracy's emergence: Toward new spaces of grief and survivability”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space29369–374
46.
De LucaR COlagneroM, 2001 [1984], “Primo Levi” translated by GordonR in Primo Levi: The Voice of Memory, Interviews 1961–87 Ed. BelpolitiMGordonR (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 161–166
47.
DerridaJ, 1992 [1982], “Before the law” translated by RonellARoulstonC, in Jacques Derrida, Acts of Literature Ed. AttridgeD (Routledge, London) pp 182–220
DikeçM, 2012, “Politics is sublime”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space30262–279
50.
DittmerJ, 2008, “The geographical pivot of (the end of) history: Evangelical geopolitical imaginations and audience interpretation of Left Behind”Political Geography27280–300
51.
EbanA, 1973, “Our place in the human scheme”Congress Bi-Weekly 30 March, 5–9
52.
EbanA, 1975, “Zionism and the UN”New York Times 3 November, page 35
53.
FoucaultM, 1990 [1976] The History of Sexuality Volume I: An Introduction translated by HurleyR (Vintage Books, New York)
54.
GordonN, 2009, “Boycott Israel”Los Angeles Times 20 August, page A31
LernerG, 2001 [1984] “If this is a state” translated by GordonR, in Primo Levi: The Voice of Memory, Interviews 1961–87 Ed. BepolitiMGordonR (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 279–296
65.
LeviP, 1959If This is a Man2nd edition, translated by WoolfS (Orion Press, New York)
66.
LeviP, 1979 [1963], “Afterword: The author's answers to his readers' questions” translated by FeldmanR, in If This is a Man, The Truce Ed. LeviP (Penguin, London) pp 381–398
67.
LeviP, 1987 [1981], “Story of a coin” translated by FeldmanR, in Moments of Reprieve (Abacus, London) pp 161–172
68.
LeviP, 1988 [1946], “Shemà” translated by FeldmanRSwannB, in Collected Poems Ed. LeviP (Faber and Faber, London) page 9
69.
LeviP, 1989The Drowned and the Saved translated by RosenthalR (Abacus, London)
70.
LévinasE, 1990 [1961], “Jewish thought today” translated by HandS, in Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism Ed. LévinasE (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD) pp 159–166
71.
LévinasE, 2004 [1960], “Dialectics and the Sino—Soviet Quarrel” translated by PollerN, in Unforeseen History Ed. LévinasE (University of Illinois Press, Champaign, IL) pp 107–109
72.
McClennenS A, 2006, “Countering the assault on higher education”Radical Teacher7715–19
73.
MarxK, 1973 [1852], “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” translated by FowkesB, in Karl Marx: Surveys from Exile Ed. FernbachD (Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middx) pp 143–249
OwensP, 2010, “Walking corpses: Arendt on the limits and possibilities of cosmopolitan politics”, in International Relations Theory and Philosophy: Interpretive Dialogues Eds MooreCFarrandsC (Routledge, New York) pp 72–82
81.
PansaG, 2001 [1982], “Primo Levi: Begin should go” translated GordonR, in Primo Levi: The Voice of Memory, Interviews 1961–87 Ed. BelpolitiMGordonR (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 279–296
ToaffDAscarelliE, 2001 [1987], “Return to Auschwitz” translated by GordonR, in Primo Levi: The Voice of Memory, Interviews 1961–87 Ed. BelpolitiMGordonR (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 208–217
