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The book constitutes an attempt to rethink medieval Japanese religion in light of the recently discovered documents and of the innovative contributions by Japanese scholars. Drawing on the theoretical insights of structuralism, post-structuralism, and Actor-Network Theory, it retrieves what could be called the “implicit pantheon” (by opposition to the “explicit,” orthodox pantheon) of medieval esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō). Through a number of case studies, the book introduces readers to the labyrinthine world of medieval Japanese religiosity, and shows the centrality of the gods in religious discourse and practice. It describes and analyzes the impressive mythological and ritual efflorescence that marked the medieval period, not only in the religious domain, but also in the political, artistic, and literary spheres. While the individual chapters of the book give seem to follow the general taxonomic structure of the esoteric Buddhist pantheon, the proliferation of oblique relationships within and between chapters undermines that hierarchical structure and reveals the existence of a complex network, linking, not only deities, but also rituals, symbols, people, institutions, sacred objects and places.

This book traces Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's engagement with deconstructive thought from his early work to the present, showing how consistently and closely Agamben takes up (critically, sympathetically, polemically – and very often implicitly) the work of Jacques Derrida as his chief contemporary interlocutor. At its most fundamental level, Agamben's thought has been viewed as descending primarily from the work of Heidegger, Benjamin, and, more recently, Foucault. This book, however, complicates and expands that constellation by showing that any understanding of Agamben that does not take his relation to Derrida into account remains incomplete. Divided into two roughly chronological parts, the book begins with a section titled “First Principles” that examines the development of Agamben's key concepts – infancy, Voice, potentiality – from the 1960s to approximately 1990 and traces the way these concepts consistently draw on and respond to specific texts and concepts in Derrida's work. The second part, titled “Strategy without Finality or Means without End,” examines the political turn in Agamben's and Derrida's thinking from about 1990 onward, beginning with their crucial investigations of sovereignty and violence and moving through their parallel treatments of juridical power, the relation between humans and animals, and finally messianism and the politics to come.