Kohn Margaret and McBride Keally
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195399578
- eISBN:
- 9780199894437
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195399578.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, Comparative Politics
This chapter focuses on law as one dimension of the problem of transition into the postcolonial regime. Martial law was frequently declared in the colonies, but it remained controversial since it ...
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This chapter focuses on law as one dimension of the problem of transition into the postcolonial regime. Martial law was frequently declared in the colonies, but it remained controversial since it seemed antithetical to image of colonialism as a civilizing mission that would bring the rule of law to barbaric places. Mill, Burke, and Tocqueville all debated martial law; while they were in broad agreement about the legitimacy of the colonial state, they disagreed about the extent of exceptional measures. Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Achille Mbembe, on the other hand, argue that the real issue is the state itself not the exception. For Ngugi, the State of Emergency in Kenya revealed the deeper logic of colonial governance. Their approach to the concept of the state of exception, with its attentiveness to the lawlessness at the heart of legality itself, illuminates the problem of founding a new state out of the violent vestiges of the old order.Less
This chapter focuses on law as one dimension of the problem of transition into the postcolonial regime. Martial law was frequently declared in the colonies, but it remained controversial since it seemed antithetical to image of colonialism as a civilizing mission that would bring the rule of law to barbaric places. Mill, Burke, and Tocqueville all debated martial law; while they were in broad agreement about the legitimacy of the colonial state, they disagreed about the extent of exceptional measures. Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Achille Mbembe, on the other hand, argue that the real issue is the state itself not the exception. For Ngugi, the State of Emergency in Kenya revealed the deeper logic of colonial governance. Their approach to the concept of the state of exception, with its attentiveness to the lawlessness at the heart of legality itself, illuminates the problem of founding a new state out of the violent vestiges of the old order.
Audronė Žukauskaitė
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199559213
- eISBN:
- 9780191594403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek interprets Antigone as a figure driven by some pathological desire, being attached to the Other (Polyneices) without the mediation of symbolic rules and laws. In ...
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The Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek interprets Antigone as a figure driven by some pathological desire, being attached to the Other (Polyneices) without the mediation of symbolic rules and laws. In this sense, Antigone's decision to bury her brother is seen as an authoritarian or even totalitarian act. On the other hand, the same gesture, which is seen as pathological, can also be interpreted as an ethical act par excellence: Antigone's transgression is an ethical act, which intervenes into social reality and changes the very coordinates of what is perceived to be possible. These coordinates, it is argued, can't be explained either in terms of kinship, or in terms of the unconscious. The very idea of transgression acquires meaning only in a more general framework of the analysis of power relationships. But what kind of power relationships could we have in mind and what is Antigone's position in it? The Chorus describes Antigone as ‘inhuman’ and it is necessary to decide how to interpret this ‘inhumanness’. Lacan points out that inhuman ‘literally means something uncivilized, something raw’. It is precisely this ‘raw flesh’, this ‘inhumanness’, on which the chapter's interpretation is focused. Two thinkers, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, are very important in order to reconsider this ‘rawness’ of Antigone not as an insignificant feature, but, probably, as the main conflict of the tragedy. This ‘rawness’ or biological life of man, which Foucault made the main object of his research, appears to be not the ‘natural condition’ of human life, but a result of power relations. Agamben develops Foucault's ideas further, establishing a clear connection between what he calls ‘bare life’ and modern state power. The question, asked in the chapter, is this: are these theories of sovereign power relevant in interpreting the Sophoclean play? Can it be presupposed that the limit, for which Antigone stands, is ‘the trace of an alternate legality that haunts the conscious, public sphere as its scandalous future’ and that comes into existence in modern times?Less
The Lacanian philosopher Slavoj Žižek interprets Antigone as a figure driven by some pathological desire, being attached to the Other (Polyneices) without the mediation of symbolic rules and laws. In this sense, Antigone's decision to bury her brother is seen as an authoritarian or even totalitarian act. On the other hand, the same gesture, which is seen as pathological, can also be interpreted as an ethical act par excellence: Antigone's transgression is an ethical act, which intervenes into social reality and changes the very coordinates of what is perceived to be possible. These coordinates, it is argued, can't be explained either in terms of kinship, or in terms of the unconscious. The very idea of transgression acquires meaning only in a more general framework of the analysis of power relationships. But what kind of power relationships could we have in mind and what is Antigone's position in it? The Chorus describes Antigone as ‘inhuman’ and it is necessary to decide how to interpret this ‘inhumanness’. Lacan points out that inhuman ‘literally means something uncivilized, something raw’. It is precisely this ‘raw flesh’, this ‘inhumanness’, on which the chapter's interpretation is focused. Two thinkers, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, are very important in order to reconsider this ‘rawness’ of Antigone not as an insignificant feature, but, probably, as the main conflict of the tragedy. This ‘rawness’ or biological life of man, which Foucault made the main object of his research, appears to be not the ‘natural condition’ of human life, but a result of power relations. Agamben develops Foucault's ideas further, establishing a clear connection between what he calls ‘bare life’ and modern state power. The question, asked in the chapter, is this: are these theories of sovereign power relevant in interpreting the Sophoclean play? Can it be presupposed that the limit, for which Antigone stands, is ‘the trace of an alternate legality that haunts the conscious, public sphere as its scandalous future’ and that comes into existence in modern times?
S. E. Wilmer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199559213
- eISBN:
- 9780191594403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0022
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of ...
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This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of homo sacer, and then applies this analogy in a more detailed discussion of Seamus Heaney's version of The Burial at Thebes at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004. Heaney's version was inspired by President Bush's ‘war on terror’ and the detention and ‘rendition’ of suspected terrorists in prisons beyond legal redress. The language deployed in the play echoed statements made by President Bush and evoked his administration's unwarranted invasion of Iraq and torture of prisoners. By comparing recent versions of Antigone that represent her as homo sacer, subjected to a liminal state between life and death, the chapter demonstrates how the ‘state of exception’ theorized by Georgio Agamben has become normalized in the twenty‐first century. It draws parallels between the ‘exceptional’ actions of governments such as the Bush administration and the Argentinian dictatorship, making up the laws as they go along, removing people from their homes and environment, and incarcerating or disposing of them outside the polis, outside the reach of their friends and families. Moreover, it shows that Western governments are taking advantage of the ‘war on terror’ to develop new methods of social control (such as increased security measures by the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including more intensive customs inspections, omnipresent CCTV cameras, heightened threat alerts, etc.) that deprive citizens of their civil rights. By applying Agamben's notions of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘state of exception’ to these adaptations, as well as Slavoj Žižek's and Judith Butler's comments on recent political developments, it demonstrates the claim that Antigone makes on behalf of the disenfranchised of the world.Less
This chapter examines some productions in the late twentieth century (Fugard's The Island, Gambaro's Antígona Furiosa, and Glowacki's Antigone in New York) that have employed Antigone as a kind of homo sacer, and then applies this analogy in a more detailed discussion of Seamus Heaney's version of The Burial at Thebes at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 2004. Heaney's version was inspired by President Bush's ‘war on terror’ and the detention and ‘rendition’ of suspected terrorists in prisons beyond legal redress. The language deployed in the play echoed statements made by President Bush and evoked his administration's unwarranted invasion of Iraq and torture of prisoners. By comparing recent versions of Antigone that represent her as homo sacer, subjected to a liminal state between life and death, the chapter demonstrates how the ‘state of exception’ theorized by Georgio Agamben has become normalized in the twenty‐first century. It draws parallels between the ‘exceptional’ actions of governments such as the Bush administration and the Argentinian dictatorship, making up the laws as they go along, removing people from their homes and environment, and incarcerating or disposing of them outside the polis, outside the reach of their friends and families. Moreover, it shows that Western governments are taking advantage of the ‘war on terror’ to develop new methods of social control (such as increased security measures by the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including more intensive customs inspections, omnipresent CCTV cameras, heightened threat alerts, etc.) that deprive citizens of their civil rights. By applying Agamben's notions of ‘homo sacer’ and ‘state of exception’ to these adaptations, as well as Slavoj Žižek's and Judith Butler's comments on recent political developments, it demonstrates the claim that Antigone makes on behalf of the disenfranchised of the world.
María Florencia Nelli
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199559213
- eISBN:
- 9780191594403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0020
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Griselda Gambaro's play Antígona Furiosa was written and staged after Gambaro's exile as a consequence of Argentina's so‐called ‘Dirty War’ in the mid‐1970s. This chapter discusses Gambaro's play, ...
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Griselda Gambaro's play Antígona Furiosa was written and staged after Gambaro's exile as a consequence of Argentina's so‐called ‘Dirty War’ in the mid‐1970s. This chapter discusses Gambaro's play, taking into account some of Giorgio Agamben's thoughts in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) and The State of Exception (2005). Concepts such as ‘state of exception’, ‘inclusion of the exclusion’, ‘threshold’, and ‘living dead man’, as well as the figure of the camp are approached, illustrated, and fully explored by Antígona Furiosa in so far as they are at the heart of the structure of all major modern totalitarian states, of which the Argentinean ‘Proceso’ with its thousands of desaparecidos is just a new example. This chapter seeks to examine those notions not only as they are represented in the script of the play but essentially as they are reflected in the design of the performance space.Less
Griselda Gambaro's play Antígona Furiosa was written and staged after Gambaro's exile as a consequence of Argentina's so‐called ‘Dirty War’ in the mid‐1970s. This chapter discusses Gambaro's play, taking into account some of Giorgio Agamben's thoughts in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) and The State of Exception (2005). Concepts such as ‘state of exception’, ‘inclusion of the exclusion’, ‘threshold’, and ‘living dead man’, as well as the figure of the camp are approached, illustrated, and fully explored by Antígona Furiosa in so far as they are at the heart of the structure of all major modern totalitarian states, of which the Argentinean ‘Proceso’ with its thousands of desaparecidos is just a new example. This chapter seeks to examine those notions not only as they are represented in the script of the play but essentially as they are reflected in the design of the performance space.
Mark Neocleous
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633289
- eISBN:
- 9780748671984
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633289.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Building on the discussion of prerogative in the previous chapter, Chapter 2 offers a critique of the political discourse of ‘exception’. The chapter argues that the way to understand the politics of ...
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Building on the discussion of prerogative in the previous chapter, Chapter 2 offers a critique of the political discourse of ‘exception’. The chapter argues that the way to understand the politics of security is less through the ‘state of exception’ and much more through the logic of emergency powers. The chapter shows that emergency powers have seeped into law and become normalized. This has underpinned and reinforced the logic of security.Less
Building on the discussion of prerogative in the previous chapter, Chapter 2 offers a critique of the political discourse of ‘exception’. The chapter argues that the way to understand the politics of security is less through the ‘state of exception’ and much more through the logic of emergency powers. The chapter shows that emergency powers have seeped into law and become normalized. This has underpinned and reinforced the logic of security.
Donald E. Pease
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226185064
- eISBN:
- 9780226185088
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226185088.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
American studies supplied an interdisciplinary methodology for studying the literature, history, politics, and territorial geography of the United States. The discourse of American exceptionalism ...
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American studies supplied an interdisciplinary methodology for studying the literature, history, politics, and territorial geography of the United States. The discourse of American exceptionalism monitored how American culture was studied, and it regulated these processes of translatability. This chapter opens up with a brief critical genealogy of American exceptionalism. The problems that confront any effort to construct a field of American studies after U.S. exceptionalism lead to a consideration of the arguments of Daniel Rodgers, who is perhaps the most convincing advocate of postexceptionalist American studies. American exceptionalism, however, has constituted a discursive relationship to the exceptions that the U.S. imperial state instituted throughout its history of struggles with other imperial state formations over the control of geopolitical order. One of the challenging areas of inquiry that this new field of American studies would be positioned to address pertains to the ways in which Bush's State of Exception would disallow the formation of any competing form of imperial state exceptionalism.Less
American studies supplied an interdisciplinary methodology for studying the literature, history, politics, and territorial geography of the United States. The discourse of American exceptionalism monitored how American culture was studied, and it regulated these processes of translatability. This chapter opens up with a brief critical genealogy of American exceptionalism. The problems that confront any effort to construct a field of American studies after U.S. exceptionalism lead to a consideration of the arguments of Daniel Rodgers, who is perhaps the most convincing advocate of postexceptionalist American studies. American exceptionalism, however, has constituted a discursive relationship to the exceptions that the U.S. imperial state instituted throughout its history of struggles with other imperial state formations over the control of geopolitical order. One of the challenging areas of inquiry that this new field of American studies would be positioned to address pertains to the ways in which Bush's State of Exception would disallow the formation of any competing form of imperial state exceptionalism.
Nicole A. Waligora-Davis
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195369915
- eISBN:
- 9780199893379
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369915.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Reading Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” alongside American slave law, Dred Scott v. Sandford, The State of Missouri v. Celia, and the Civil Rights Cases (1883), this chapter addresses the ...
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Reading Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” alongside American slave law, Dred Scott v. Sandford, The State of Missouri v. Celia, and the Civil Rights Cases (1883), this chapter addresses the substantive social and legal implications of legal recognition for black Americans. Engaging Hannnah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, and Gerald Neuman, this chapter offers a detailed account of the concept of sanctuary and the anomic legal status of black Americans, and demonstrates how the denial of legal subjectivity and political recognition rendered blacks excessive to the law and vulnerable to assault. Slavery survives within the constitutive makeup of American legal and political culture as the interface through which rights became contingent on political membership and on the acknowledgement of an individual’s legal personality. “Benito Cereno” provides both a rubric for reading the relation of the law to the black body that continues to inform our legal culture, and insight into the way in which race simultaneously informed U.S. empire and home. Focusing specifically on Haiti, and the implications of her revolution for both U.S. race relations and imperial ambitions during the 19th century, this chapter opens up the question of legal recognition from a study of individuals to relations among nation-state powers.Less
Reading Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” alongside American slave law, Dred Scott v. Sandford, The State of Missouri v. Celia, and the Civil Rights Cases (1883), this chapter addresses the substantive social and legal implications of legal recognition for black Americans. Engaging Hannnah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, and Gerald Neuman, this chapter offers a detailed account of the concept of sanctuary and the anomic legal status of black Americans, and demonstrates how the denial of legal subjectivity and political recognition rendered blacks excessive to the law and vulnerable to assault. Slavery survives within the constitutive makeup of American legal and political culture as the interface through which rights became contingent on political membership and on the acknowledgement of an individual’s legal personality. “Benito Cereno” provides both a rubric for reading the relation of the law to the black body that continues to inform our legal culture, and insight into the way in which race simultaneously informed U.S. empire and home. Focusing specifically on Haiti, and the implications of her revolution for both U.S. race relations and imperial ambitions during the 19th century, this chapter opens up the question of legal recognition from a study of individuals to relations among nation-state powers.
Peter Ramsay
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199581061
- eISBN:
- 9780191741005
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581061.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This book presents a theory of the recent emergence of a right to security and of its protection by the criminal law in the UK. It states that the protection of such a right makes sense of the ...
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This book presents a theory of the recent emergence of a right to security and of its protection by the criminal law in the UK. It states that the protection of such a right makes sense of the liabilities found in much of the expansive criminal legislation enacted under that government. This book identifies the normative source of the right to security in the idea of vulnerable autonomy. It demonstrates that this idea is axiomatic to political theories that have enjoyed a preponderant influence across the political mainstream, well beyond the ranks of the Labour government. It considers the continuing influence of these normative commitments on the Coalition government's policy. The book explores how the contemporary criminal law's institutionalization of a right to security differs from the law's earlier protection of security interests. It exposes the paradox presented by laws that declare their own lack of authority by threatening punishments that are justified on the assumption that the normal condition of the representative subject of law is one of feeling vulnerable to criminal victimization. The book presents unorthodox criminal law theory in two respects. First, it offers an explanatory political sociology of a contemporary trend in the criminal law's ‘special part’ rather than a philosophical treatment of the law's general principles. Second, rather than applying a pre-existing sociological or philosophical theory to the law, it develops its theoretical explanation from a detailed legal analysis and reconstruction of New Labour's flagship criminal justice policy, the Anti-Social Behaviour Order.Less
This book presents a theory of the recent emergence of a right to security and of its protection by the criminal law in the UK. It states that the protection of such a right makes sense of the liabilities found in much of the expansive criminal legislation enacted under that government. This book identifies the normative source of the right to security in the idea of vulnerable autonomy. It demonstrates that this idea is axiomatic to political theories that have enjoyed a preponderant influence across the political mainstream, well beyond the ranks of the Labour government. It considers the continuing influence of these normative commitments on the Coalition government's policy. The book explores how the contemporary criminal law's institutionalization of a right to security differs from the law's earlier protection of security interests. It exposes the paradox presented by laws that declare their own lack of authority by threatening punishments that are justified on the assumption that the normal condition of the representative subject of law is one of feeling vulnerable to criminal victimization. The book presents unorthodox criminal law theory in two respects. First, it offers an explanatory political sociology of a contemporary trend in the criminal law's ‘special part’ rather than a philosophical treatment of the law's general principles. Second, rather than applying a pre-existing sociological or philosophical theory to the law, it develops its theoretical explanation from a detailed legal analysis and reconstruction of New Labour's flagship criminal justice policy, the Anti-Social Behaviour Order.
Peter Ramsay
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199581061
- eISBN:
- 9780191741005
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581061.003.0011
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology
This chapter argues that the substantive law that protects the right to security has the character of emergency power that takes a normalized form. It critiques the theory of the normalization of the ...
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This chapter argues that the substantive law that protects the right to security has the character of emergency power that takes a normalized form. It critiques the theory of the normalization of the state of exception, arguing that this experience offers compelling evidence that the sovereignty of the state has decayed significantly in the UK, so that the criminal law's threats are premised on their own inadequacy. It also identifies the historical precondition of this paradoxical state of affairs in the decay of representative politics — a decay that is an aspect of the political experience already discussed in Chapter 5. This theory is contrasted with Garland's apparently similar ‘myth of the sovereign state’ thesis, arguing that the problem of the expansion of penal control is the result of the actual decline of sovereign authority rather than of the political pursuit of its myth, as proposed by Garland.Less
This chapter argues that the substantive law that protects the right to security has the character of emergency power that takes a normalized form. It critiques the theory of the normalization of the state of exception, arguing that this experience offers compelling evidence that the sovereignty of the state has decayed significantly in the UK, so that the criminal law's threats are premised on their own inadequacy. It also identifies the historical precondition of this paradoxical state of affairs in the decay of representative politics — a decay that is an aspect of the political experience already discussed in Chapter 5. This theory is contrasted with Garland's apparently similar ‘myth of the sovereign state’ thesis, arguing that the problem of the expansion of penal control is the result of the actual decline of sovereign authority rather than of the political pursuit of its myth, as proposed by Garland.
Katherine Isobel Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474420839
- eISBN:
- 9781474476478
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420839.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
This chapter provides an introduction to the key ideas (statehood, the state of exception, imagination, law and civilisation) with which the book as a whole engages and how they relate to each other. ...
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This chapter provides an introduction to the key ideas (statehood, the state of exception, imagination, law and civilisation) with which the book as a whole engages and how they relate to each other. The chapter also introduces several key interlocutors (e.g. Giorgio Agamben, Nasser Hussain, Benedict Anderson) on whose work the book builds. Discussion of these interlocutors indicates how their scholarship informs the book and some of the challenges that the book offers to their work. A summary of each of the ensuing chapters is provided with an explanation of the parameters of the book and its critical aims.Less
This chapter provides an introduction to the key ideas (statehood, the state of exception, imagination, law and civilisation) with which the book as a whole engages and how they relate to each other. The chapter also introduces several key interlocutors (e.g. Giorgio Agamben, Nasser Hussain, Benedict Anderson) on whose work the book builds. Discussion of these interlocutors indicates how their scholarship informs the book and some of the challenges that the book offers to their work. A summary of each of the ensuing chapters is provided with an explanation of the parameters of the book and its critical aims.
Marc de Wilde
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226443
- eISBN:
- 9780823237043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226443.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter explores the status of theologico-political motifs in the work of Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt. In their work, the concept of political theology stands ...
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This chapter explores the status of theologico-political motifs in the work of Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt. In their work, the concept of political theology stands neither for an explicitly theological discourse in politics nor for some kind of hidden theological agenda. Rather, it marks the continuous resurfacing of theological figures of thought in what seems an otherwise relentlessly secularized world. The theological, in their view, resurfaces not only in fundamental political beliefs, ideologies, and myths but also, more obliquely, in theories of sovereignty, in theories and practices demonstrating the force of law, and, last but not least, in the state of exception. This chapter includes a close reading of Benjamin's 1921 chapter “Critique of Violence” and Schmitt's 1922 study “Political Theology”. Although it is uncertain whether Schmitt was familiar with Benjamin's chapter, for both the concept of political theology implies the task of inventing or reinventing a politics that bears witness to divine violence, albeit without being able to understand itself as a direct representation of that violence.Less
This chapter explores the status of theologico-political motifs in the work of Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt. In their work, the concept of political theology stands neither for an explicitly theological discourse in politics nor for some kind of hidden theological agenda. Rather, it marks the continuous resurfacing of theological figures of thought in what seems an otherwise relentlessly secularized world. The theological, in their view, resurfaces not only in fundamental political beliefs, ideologies, and myths but also, more obliquely, in theories of sovereignty, in theories and practices demonstrating the force of law, and, last but not least, in the state of exception. This chapter includes a close reading of Benjamin's 1921 chapter “Critique of Violence” and Schmitt's 1922 study “Political Theology”. Although it is uncertain whether Schmitt was familiar with Benjamin's chapter, for both the concept of political theology implies the task of inventing or reinventing a politics that bears witness to divine violence, albeit without being able to understand itself as a direct representation of that violence.
Katherine Isobel Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474420839
- eISBN:
- 9781474476478
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420839.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
Chapter Two identifies and anatomizes an important subgenre in the adventure tradition in literature: District Commissioner fiction. This subgenre is significant because, while in the nineteenth ...
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Chapter Two identifies and anatomizes an important subgenre in the adventure tradition in literature: District Commissioner fiction. This subgenre is significant because, while in the nineteenth century the colonial hero was typically represented as a buccaneer outside the law, District Commissioner fiction repositions the hero within and as the law. Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River series is read alongside works by Arthur E. Southon in relation to theories of the state of exception, to demonstrate how the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule that he represents are figured exceptionally, standing outside the law as the force of law.Less
Chapter Two identifies and anatomizes an important subgenre in the adventure tradition in literature: District Commissioner fiction. This subgenre is significant because, while in the nineteenth century the colonial hero was typically represented as a buccaneer outside the law, District Commissioner fiction repositions the hero within and as the law. Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River series is read alongside works by Arthur E. Southon in relation to theories of the state of exception, to demonstrate how the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule that he represents are figured exceptionally, standing outside the law as the force of law.
David Nugent
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781503609037
- eISBN:
- 9781503609723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503609037.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
This chapter introduces concepts that are crucial to the analysis of The Encrypted State. The most important of these is “sacropolitics,” the politics of public mass sacrifice. This term identifies a ...
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This chapter introduces concepts that are crucial to the analysis of The Encrypted State. The most important of these is “sacropolitics,” the politics of public mass sacrifice. This term identifies a form of sovereignty that is distinct from biopolitics, necropolitics and the state of exception. Sacropolitics differs from biopolitics in the sense that it is not about the management of life. It differs from necropolitics in that it is not about the subjugation of life to death. Sacropolitics is neither about managing nor taking life but rather animating it. It is about bringing to life dead, dying or moribund populations and social formations. Sacropolitical efforts call upon the entire population to engage in public performances of mass sacrifice. These performances are intended to contribute to the creation of new life worlds that can redeem poor countries from the profane state into which they have fallen.Less
This chapter introduces concepts that are crucial to the analysis of The Encrypted State. The most important of these is “sacropolitics,” the politics of public mass sacrifice. This term identifies a form of sovereignty that is distinct from biopolitics, necropolitics and the state of exception. Sacropolitics differs from biopolitics in the sense that it is not about the management of life. It differs from necropolitics in that it is not about the subjugation of life to death. Sacropolitics is neither about managing nor taking life but rather animating it. It is about bringing to life dead, dying or moribund populations and social formations. Sacropolitical efforts call upon the entire population to engage in public performances of mass sacrifice. These performances are intended to contribute to the creation of new life worlds that can redeem poor countries from the profane state into which they have fallen.
Katherine Isobel Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474420839
- eISBN:
- 9781474476478
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420839.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
Imagined States examines the significance of the law in colonial and postcolonial fiction from and about Nigeria between 1900 and 1966. The book argues that in the discrete period of the final ...
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Imagined States examines the significance of the law in colonial and postcolonial fiction from and about Nigeria between 1900 and 1966. The book argues that in the discrete period of the final half-century of British colonialism in Nigeria through into the early years of independence prior to the Biafran War, the law provided a key site for fiction’s negotiations with the increasingly complex realities of the colonial project. Attending to the representation of the law in that fiction provides important insights not only into the realities of the historical period but, equally importantly, into the dominant and emergent discourses and ideologies that shaped those realities. Imagined States explores a range of texts including popular, middle-brow and acclaimed postcolonial novels, as well as newspaper stories and memoirs, by both British and Nigerian authors (including Chinua Achebe, Joyce Carey, Cyprian Ekwensi and Edgar Wallace), focusing in particular on how the state of exception and ideas of civilisation were negotiated imaginatively in the law and fiction. These explorations are organised chronologically and thematically, moving from the law ‘upcountry’ (focusing on pre- and inter-war British representations of the District Commissioner), through the law in the city (focusing on late colonial and early postcolonial Nigerian fiction), to law and politics (focusing on postcolonial Nigerian representations of treason and violence).Less
Imagined States examines the significance of the law in colonial and postcolonial fiction from and about Nigeria between 1900 and 1966. The book argues that in the discrete period of the final half-century of British colonialism in Nigeria through into the early years of independence prior to the Biafran War, the law provided a key site for fiction’s negotiations with the increasingly complex realities of the colonial project. Attending to the representation of the law in that fiction provides important insights not only into the realities of the historical period but, equally importantly, into the dominant and emergent discourses and ideologies that shaped those realities. Imagined States explores a range of texts including popular, middle-brow and acclaimed postcolonial novels, as well as newspaper stories and memoirs, by both British and Nigerian authors (including Chinua Achebe, Joyce Carey, Cyprian Ekwensi and Edgar Wallace), focusing in particular on how the state of exception and ideas of civilisation were negotiated imaginatively in the law and fiction. These explorations are organised chronologically and thematically, moving from the law ‘upcountry’ (focusing on pre- and inter-war British representations of the District Commissioner), through the law in the city (focusing on late colonial and early postcolonial Nigerian fiction), to law and politics (focusing on postcolonial Nigerian representations of treason and violence).
Katherine Isobel Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474420839
- eISBN:
- 9781474476478
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420839.003.0004
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
Chapter Three examines a later incarnation of the District Commissioner in Joyce Cary’s Mr Johnson. The chapter shows how, despite the novel’s ironic critiques of the figure of the District ...
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Chapter Three examines a later incarnation of the District Commissioner in Joyce Cary’s Mr Johnson. The chapter shows how, despite the novel’s ironic critiques of the figure of the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule, Cary reinstates the heroized exceptionalism dramatized in earlier popular District Commissioner fiction. The chapter also explores the precarious position of Mr Johnson himself as educated southerner within the administration of the North. The chapter presents the novel in terms of its animation of legal questions and the state of exception that underpinned indirect rule. The chapter’s discussion is contextualised through reference to W. R. Crocker’s scathing memoir of colonial service, Nigeria: A Critique of British Colonial Administration (1936).Less
Chapter Three examines a later incarnation of the District Commissioner in Joyce Cary’s Mr Johnson. The chapter shows how, despite the novel’s ironic critiques of the figure of the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule, Cary reinstates the heroized exceptionalism dramatized in earlier popular District Commissioner fiction. The chapter also explores the precarious position of Mr Johnson himself as educated southerner within the administration of the North. The chapter presents the novel in terms of its animation of legal questions and the state of exception that underpinned indirect rule. The chapter’s discussion is contextualised through reference to W. R. Crocker’s scathing memoir of colonial service, Nigeria: A Critique of British Colonial Administration (1936).
Maxwell A. Cameron
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199987443
- eISBN:
- 9780199346257
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199987443.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The chapter reviews the overall argument and makes six further claims. First, the expansion of the administrative state does not justify designating bureaucracy as a fourth power. Second, the ...
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The chapter reviews the overall argument and makes six further claims. First, the expansion of the administrative state does not justify designating bureaucracy as a fourth power. Second, the separation of powers is not unique to presidentialism because the separate election of legislative and executive bodies is less important than the ways in which the making and application of law are monopolized by separate branches of government. Third, the separation of powers is often violated in delegative democracies with the effect of weakening the rule of law. Fourth, such violations also occur in emergency situations in established democracies, but this does not diminish the importance of the separation of powers. Fifth, international anarchy can undermine the separation of powers in ways that also threaten state power. Sixth, the diffusion of new communication technologies both undermines monopolies of knowledge and contributes to the centralization of power fostered by globalization.Less
The chapter reviews the overall argument and makes six further claims. First, the expansion of the administrative state does not justify designating bureaucracy as a fourth power. Second, the separation of powers is not unique to presidentialism because the separate election of legislative and executive bodies is less important than the ways in which the making and application of law are monopolized by separate branches of government. Third, the separation of powers is often violated in delegative democracies with the effect of weakening the rule of law. Fourth, such violations also occur in emergency situations in established democracies, but this does not diminish the importance of the separation of powers. Fifth, international anarchy can undermine the separation of powers in ways that also threaten state power. Sixth, the diffusion of new communication technologies both undermines monopolies of knowledge and contributes to the centralization of power fostered by globalization.
Gary Shapiro
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226394459
- eISBN:
- 9780226394596
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226394596.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter develops Nietzsche’s analysis of the modern state’s fragility, supposedly the telos of world-history. His observation that the state requires manufactured crises to claim legitimacy is ...
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This chapter develops Nietzsche’s analysis of the modern state’s fragility, supposedly the telos of world-history. His observation that the state requires manufactured crises to claim legitimacy is contextualized with reference to the German “state of exception.” The analysis is amplified by considering views of Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, and others on parallels between political and theological sovereignty. Given this skeptical take on state and world-history, the chapter turns to Nietzsche’s alternative concept of the earth (or human-earth). It focuses on the complementary perspectives of two paired texts, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. The first calls for loyalty to the earth as the highest virtue, dramatizes what it could mean to live on the earth, and raises the question of “great events” in relation to the earth. Beyond is read in terms of its historical and political analysis of so-called “peoples and fatherlands.” Nietzsche dispels nationalist ideology, demonstrating that ethnicities and nation-states fail at the coherence and integrity assumed by “world-history.” Rather, he sees the human-earth as inhabited by increasingly nomadic populations and declares that this is the century of the multitude (Menge), a heterogeneous grouping that can be swayed by cultural media.Less
This chapter develops Nietzsche’s analysis of the modern state’s fragility, supposedly the telos of world-history. His observation that the state requires manufactured crises to claim legitimacy is contextualized with reference to the German “state of exception.” The analysis is amplified by considering views of Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, and others on parallels between political and theological sovereignty. Given this skeptical take on state and world-history, the chapter turns to Nietzsche’s alternative concept of the earth (or human-earth). It focuses on the complementary perspectives of two paired texts, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. The first calls for loyalty to the earth as the highest virtue, dramatizes what it could mean to live on the earth, and raises the question of “great events” in relation to the earth. Beyond is read in terms of its historical and political analysis of so-called “peoples and fatherlands.” Nietzsche dispels nationalist ideology, demonstrating that ethnicities and nation-states fail at the coherence and integrity assumed by “world-history.” Rather, he sees the human-earth as inhabited by increasingly nomadic populations and declares that this is the century of the multitude (Menge), a heterogeneous grouping that can be swayed by cultural media.
Penelope Deutscher
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780231176415
- eISBN:
- 9780231544559
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231176415.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
Considers the status of reproduction and abortion for the two leading proponents of the thanatopolitical interpretations of Foucauldian biopolitics: Italian philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Roberto ...
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Considers the status of reproduction and abortion for the two leading proponents of the thanatopolitical interpretations of Foucauldian biopolitics: Italian philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito. Re-evaluates a number of feminist critiques of their work. Argues for a new understanding of abortion, by means not of an application of Esposito and Agamben, but through an ‘inversion’ of some of their resources. For example, the chapter argues for an understanding of politicized abortion in terms of an “inversion’ of a term extensively discussed by Agamben, the state of exception. Proposes this approach as an alternative to other means of feminist critique of these philosophers.Less
Considers the status of reproduction and abortion for the two leading proponents of the thanatopolitical interpretations of Foucauldian biopolitics: Italian philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito. Re-evaluates a number of feminist critiques of their work. Argues for a new understanding of abortion, by means not of an application of Esposito and Agamben, but through an ‘inversion’ of some of their resources. For example, the chapter argues for an understanding of politicized abortion in terms of an “inversion’ of a term extensively discussed by Agamben, the state of exception. Proposes this approach as an alternative to other means of feminist critique of these philosophers.
Bernadette Meyler
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501739330
- eISBN:
- 9781501739392
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501739330.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Its historical association with monarchical sovereignty has tarred pardoning with an illiberal brush. This Postlude examines Carl Schmitt’s Constitutional Theory, Political Theology and other ...
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Its historical association with monarchical sovereignty has tarred pardoning with an illiberal brush. This Postlude examines Carl Schmitt’s Constitutional Theory, Political Theology and other writings to argue that the pardon resembles the sovereign decision on the state of exception. The vision of pardoning as opposed to liberal constitutionalism dates further back than Schmitt, however; it appears as well in the writings of Immanuel Kant, one of the foundational figures of modern liberalism. Only by disassociating pardoning from sovereignty can it be reconciled with constitutionalism. The Postlude concludes by turning to the work of Hannah Arendt as one source for a non-sovereign vision of pardoning.Less
Its historical association with monarchical sovereignty has tarred pardoning with an illiberal brush. This Postlude examines Carl Schmitt’s Constitutional Theory, Political Theology and other writings to argue that the pardon resembles the sovereign decision on the state of exception. The vision of pardoning as opposed to liberal constitutionalism dates further back than Schmitt, however; it appears as well in the writings of Immanuel Kant, one of the foundational figures of modern liberalism. Only by disassociating pardoning from sovereignty can it be reconciled with constitutionalism. The Postlude concludes by turning to the work of Hannah Arendt as one source for a non-sovereign vision of pardoning.
Sara Cobb
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199826209
- eISBN:
- 9780199345335
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199826209.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter is intended to situate the rest of the book with a discussion of the materiality of narrative and the complexity of narrating violence within conflicts as well as the conflict resolution ...
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This chapter is intended to situate the rest of the book with a discussion of the materiality of narrative and the complexity of narrating violence within conflicts as well as the conflict resolution process. Thus, this framework sets the stage for the rest of the book by grounding the discussion of narrative and conflict on the issues that complicate both the pragmatics and politics of narrative dynamics in conflict processes. Illustrative examples will include narratives from the conflict in Somalia as well as narratives from a conflict in the US over immigration.Less
This chapter is intended to situate the rest of the book with a discussion of the materiality of narrative and the complexity of narrating violence within conflicts as well as the conflict resolution process. Thus, this framework sets the stage for the rest of the book by grounding the discussion of narrative and conflict on the issues that complicate both the pragmatics and politics of narrative dynamics in conflict processes. Illustrative examples will include narratives from the conflict in Somalia as well as narratives from a conflict in the US over immigration.
