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This page explores different versions of a famously difficult academic passage using simply ChatGPT (free) and made into music by Suno.
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The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
By Judith Butler, winner of the 1998 bad Writing Contest.
March of Rearticulation
We break the rigid total frame,
Structures fall, none stay the same.
Capital once held the key,
Now power shifts contingently!
Re-articulate, converge, repeat,
Hegemony moves on shifting feet.
No single order, fixed, complete,
The march of change drums through the street!
Shanty of Shifting Power
(Chorus)
Heave away, the old forms break,
Structures bend with every shake!
Hoist the sails, the tide is near,
Power’s shifting, loud and clear!
(Verse 1)
Capital once steered the way,
Homologous night, homologous day.
But the winds of change now roar,
Re-articulation at the shore!
(Chorus)
Heave away, the old forms break,
Structures bend with every shake!
Hoist the sails, the tide is near,
Power’s shifting, loud and clear!
(Verse 2)
No total frame to bind the sea,
Hegemony moves contingently.
Repeat, converge, and turn again,
The struggle’s song we bold men sing!
(Chorus)
Heave away, the old forms break,
Structures bend with every shake!
Hoist the sails, the tide is near,
Power’s shifting, loud and clear!
“Rearticulate My Heart”
(Verse 1)
You said the world was fixed in place,
Capital wrote every trace.
But I feel the ground beneath me move,
Structures shifting, breaking rules.
(Pre-Chorus)
It’s not a totality,
It’s possibility…
(Chorus)
Rearticulate my heart,
Where power falls apart.
Repeat, converge, and start again,
We’re stronger where we bend.
No eternal frame can hold,
Our hegemony unfolds—
In every moment, every part,
Rearticulate my heart.
(Verse 2)
Time was frozen, sealed in stone,
But contingence makes it our own.
Every site, each strategy,
Writes a brand new destiny.
(Pre-Chorus)
Theories fall, but we still sing,
Of power’s reckoning…
(Chorus)
Rearticulate my heart,
Where power falls apart.
Repeat, converge, and start again,
We’re stronger where we bend.
No eternal frame can hold,
Our hegemony unfolds—
In every moment, every part,
Rearticulate my heart.
(Bridge)
Althusser, you drew the lines,
But Butler showed they’re never tied.
We’ll build our world from shifting ground,
A chorus rising, power found.
(Final Chorus – big swell)
Rearticulate my heart,
Where power falls apart.
Repeat, converge, and start again,
We’re stronger where we bend.
No eternal frame can hold,
Our hegemony unfolds—
In every moment, every part,
Rearticulate my heart.
“The Ballad of Shifting Power”
(Verse 1)
Gather round all you thinkers, let me sing you this song,
They said capital ruled us, and it marched us along.
But the tide started turning, and the cracks showed the way,
Now power keeps shifting, rearticulates each day.
(Chorus)
We’re singin’ repeat, converge, start over again,
The old rigid structures can’t tell us where we’ve been.
No totality’s holdin’ what the people will do,
Hegemony’s a wild horse, it runs free and true.
(Verse 2)
Althusser drew the map, said the lines were all tight,
But Butler brought the notion that the future ain’t fixed right.
It’s contingent and messy, but it’s ours to reclaim,
Every site, every struggle writes a brand-new refrain.
(Chorus)
We’re singin’ repeat, converge, start over again,
The old rigid structures can’t tell us where we’ve been.
No totality’s holdin’ what the people will do,
Hegemony’s a wild horse, it runs free and true.
(Bridge)
So raise up your voices, let the harmonies roll,
From the streets to the heartland, it’s a song for the soul.
Structures may falter, but the spirit won’t tire,
We’ll rearticulate freedom in a chorus of fire.
(Final Chorus)
We’re singin’ repeat, converge, start over again,
The old rigid structures can’t tell us where we’ve been.
No totality’s holdin’ what the people will do,
Hegemony’s a wild horse, it runs free and true.
“The Ballad of Shifting Power”.mp4
“Rearticulate Tonight!”
(Full Cast, arms linked, swaying)
🎵 Gather up your structures, toss them out the door,
Capital’s not king here, not forevermore!
Repetition, convergence, reartic-u-late,
Hegemony’s a remix, ain’t it sounding great? 🎵
(Soloist – mock-dramatic)
🎵 Althusser said: “Totalities define!”
But Butler winked, “Contingency’s mine!” 🎵
(Cast, jazz hands)
🎵 Shift it, twist it, power’s in flight,
We’re rearticulating tonight! 🎵
(Ensemble – dancing in a circle)
🎵 No eternal structures, just a dance and a song,
If you thought it was stable, you got it all wrong!
Each site is a stage, every strategy’s bright,
The curtain goes up on contingent delight! 🎵
(Final Chorus – kickline)
🎵 Rearticulate, don’t hesitate,
Structures bend and oscillate!
History’s not pre-ordained,
Every power can be reframed! 🎵
(Big finish, everyone strikes a pose)
🎵 Reee-artic-u-laaate… TONIIIIIGHT! 🎵