Still wrestling with Butler and discussing Superstition

So now I've read the whole of the Pyschic Life of Power by Butler. Most of it was in one eye and out the other. I didn't do anything with my collage, as I hadn't presented it the week before, and it fell flat in class, not suprisingly. It didn't help that the mobius strip had gotten crushed in my bag. Dr. Reese asked if I wanted a redo, and at first I said no. I could put in all the pictures that everyone else did, and just do something, but it wouldn't mean anything to me. Then she talked about how the redo is a chance to try to reach our audience in a different way. I agreed to try. But my problem is, I really have no idea of what Butler was about. I know I need to include gender, and power, and queer theory (inversion- which I thought I did) in the collage, but I'm not really sure what all she's saying about it. Dr. Reese says if we are having trouble with the text we are resisting it. That could be true, because Butler starts of with Freud and Foucalt and others, and I certainly resist Freud's ideas. But since I don't know what Butler is about, I can't really say I'm resisting her. If her whole point is the inversion of the status quo, thati is, queer theory, I can get that. But why write a whole book about it? As usual, Najendra helped illuminate things for me. He said that the book itself is a demonstration of queer theory in that Butler is inverting the ideas of all of the people who came before.
Our reading for this week was Barker- the first two chapters of Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. He couldn't resist all the big whigs that Butler mentions either, though his book brings her into it as well. For the most part, the class got this book, and our sonnets rocked.
In class we talked about Superstition- shared beliefs. The idea is that anything we believe is a superstition. I heard Dr. Reese saying two different things, but when I tried to clarify this, I got shut down. I think she said it becomes a superstition when we no longer believe it. But I think she also said it no longer is a superstition when we let go of it. Hmmm. I'm inclined to think that the person inside the superstition will not identify it as such, but only a person outside will use that term. However, I think she wanted us to go beyond that to see that everything that we believe is a superstition that chains us until we step out of our fervor and look at it from the outside. Supersitions aren't bad, but we need to see them.
The idea that God is a superstition was floated as an example, but Dr. Reese wouldn't commit to saying that it really is a superstition. But if all that we believe as part of a shared community is superstition, then doesn't even religious belief become superstition? That doesn't mean that it isn't correct or right- it means its a shared belief. (I know, correct and right are only determined by one's context.) THis all comes back to the networked community that uses language to create us. I, me and because are all superstitions. The "I" is a shared belief.
Something else she said - there is grace in being open to receive feedback that allows for the brilliant contributions of others. This is to encourage us to be honest with each other, and to invite that honesty in.