And when it is words that wound, […] how are we to understand the relation between the word and the wound? If it is not a causal relation, and not the materialization of an intention, is it perhaps a kind of discursive transitivity that needs to be specified in its historicity and its violence? What is the relation between this transitivity and the power to injure? […] The subject who utters the socially injurious words is mobilized by that long string of injurious interpellations: the subject achieves a temporary status in the citing of that utterance, in performing itself as the origin of that utterance.
Judith Butler, Excitable speech, 1997 # 35
When words wound
Invitations to contemplate these words and play with your thoughts
Collection that include this source
Keep exploring
- I can’t help but think of that curious delay [in translation], the gap between the spoken word and its effect. I mean the delay that we notice whenever we attend a conference or debate in several languages: the way the laughs come out of sync once the translator manages to convey the comic effect, …
of our Imagination
