Headliners Making Change

The Force of Nonviolence

From Emmy records to exhibitions expanding the boundaries of art as we know it to developing new media companies, this section keeps you up to date on alums making national and international news. 

Woman with short grey hair and black shirt stares directly at camera

Philosopher George Yancy interviewed renowned philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler ’78 for The New York Times in July 2019. Their interview exchange titled, “Judith Butler: When Killing Women Isn’t a Crime” dove deep, with Dr. Butler unpacking a multitude of feminisms—their intersections and difference in focus and framework. Discussing her upcoming book, The Force of Nonviolence: The Ethical in the Political, she explained, “I work with the feminist idea of ‘relationality’ in order to show not only how lives are interdependent, but also how our ethical obligations to sustain each other’s lives follow from that interdependency.” Yancy shared how the two first became acquainted, “I reached out to the philosopher Judith Butler last year, not long after I wrote an article titled ‘#IAmSexist,’ as the #MeToo movement was in full swing. I hoped to get an unvarnished critique of the essay. I got much more: a bracing and profound exchange that led to this interview and the reminder that violence against women, in its many forms, is a global tragedy.”