Introduction: divine violence and political fetishism -- The political theology of sovereignty -- In the maw of sovereignty -- Benjamin's dissipated eschatology -- Waiting for justice -- Forgiveness, judgment and sovereign decision -- The Hebrew republic -- Conclusion : the anarchist hypothesis.

Introduction : a slight adjustment -- The one and only law -- The law of the break with law : Badiou and legal ethics -- Raving with reason : Kant and the moral law -- A "useful illusion" : H. L. A. Hart and legal positivism -- The Haitian revolution : one law in action -- Conclusion : how lawful is one law?.

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes's landmark work on political philosophy, James Martel argues that although Hobbes pays lip service to the superior interpretive authority of the sovereign, he consistently subverts this authority throughout the ...

In this paper I argue that archism, a form of political power that is ubiquitous in the world and is based on hierarchy and violence, effectively denies us a future. Archism in invested in continuing the current power dynamics. Accordingly, it projects a false sense of the future which is actually only a continuation of the present on and on forever. I look at two thinkers, Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt, who try to take the future back from archism (my (...) word, not theirs). In doing so, they do not seek to determine the future but on the contrary, to allow it to actually occur in all of its infinite complexity and unpredictability, that is to say, to submit it to anarchist forms of temporality. (shrink)

This title presents a collection of critical essays investigating the complex encounter between Beckett's works and the discourse of philosophy.

In much of the literature on Hobbes, he is considered a proto-liberal, that is, he is seen as setting up the apparatus that leads to liberalism but his own authoritarian streak makes it impossible for liberals to completely claim him as one of their own. In this paper, I argue that, far from being a precursor to liberalism, Hobbes offers a political theory that is implicitly anti-liberal. I do not mean this in the conventional sense that Hobbes was too conservative (...) for liberalism. On the contrary, I will argue that in his writing, Hobbes evinces a concept of collective interpretation, theories of individualism and the nature and possibilities for democratic politics, that is radical and offers a completely developed alternative to liberalism even as it eschews conservative and reactionary models as well. I focus in particular on the idea of individualism and how the model offered by liberals and conservatives offers far less in terms of individual choice and justice than Hobbes’s own theory does, however paradoxical this may seem. (shrink)

Although Haitian revolutionaries were not the intended audience for the Declaration of the Rights of Man, they heeded its call, demanding rights that were not meant for them. This failure of the French state to address only its desired subjects is an example of the phenomenon James R. Martel labels "misinterpellation." Complicating Althusser's famous theory, Martel explores the ways that such failures hold the potential for radical and anarchist action. In addition to the Haitian Revolution, Martel (...) shows how the revolutionary responses by activists and anticolonial leaders to Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech and the Arab Spring sprang from misinterpellation. He also takes up misinterpellated subjects in philosophy, film, literature, and nonfiction, analyzing works by Nietzsche, Kafka, Woolf, Fanon, Ellison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and others to demonstrate how characters who exist on the margins offer a generally unrecognized anarchist form of power and resistance. Timely and broad in scope, _The Misinterpellated Subject_ reveals how calls by authority are inherently vulnerable to radical possibilities, thereby suggesting that all people at all times are filled with revolutionary potential. (shrink)

Although critical of what she calls the `antipolitical' forces of love and sovereignty, Arendt reluctantly embraces these aspects as the basis of politics itself. I explain this paradox by arguing that Arendt seeks to balance Greek and Roman notions of freedom with modern conceptions of the will. The solipsistic will poses a threat to politics (it is the source of sovereignty itself). Yet the will is a fact of modern life and cannot be ignored. I argue that despite her embrace (...) of classical understandings of freedom as contingency, Arendt seeks to limit contingency and even freedom itself. She does this to accommodate the will which must have some sense of agency and continuity in order to be able to function at all. Arendt argues that sovereignty can, if properly constrained, produce a `certain limited reality' and can (along with love) serve as a basis for politics. I claim that Arendt sacrifices her classical ideals, allowing for the possibility of a modern, lesser version of freedom (which in her view is better than no freedom at all). Key Words: love • promising • sovereignty • will. (shrink)

In _Anarchist Prophets_ James R. Martel juxtaposes anarchism with what he calls archism in order to theorize the potential for a radical democratic politics. He shows how archism—a centralized and hierarchical political form that is a secularization of ancient Greek and Hebrew prophetic traditions—dominates contemporary politics through a prophet’s promises of peace and prosperity or the threat of violence. Archism is met by anarchism, in which a community shares a collective form of judgment and vision. Martel focuses (...) on the figure of the anarchist prophet, who leads efforts to regain the authority for the community that archism has stolen. The goal of anarchist prophets is to render themselves obsolete and to cede power back to the collective so as to not become archist themselves. Martel locates anarchist prophets in a range of philosophical, literary, and historical examples, from Hobbes and Nietzsche to Mary Shelley and Octavia Butler to Kurdish resistance in Syria and the Spanish Revolution. In so doing, Martel highlights how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can provide the means to overthrow archist authority. (shrink)

Although Arendt rejects all manifestations of what she calls “the absolute,” the way that theology trumps politics, she yet overlooks the theological basis of one of her most cherished models of political origins, the story of the Mayflower Compact. Arendt sees the Mayflower Compact as affording a basis for a community that is joined only through mutual promising, allowing a maximal amount of individualism and struggle within a collectively determined entity. Yet she downplays the role that theology serves in supporting (...) this compact. In overlooking the connection between the Pilgrim’s ideology and Rousseau’s concept of the general will which has its own Calvinist origins, Arendt evinces a tendency to forgive a basis for politics in America which she vehemently rejects in the European context. Insofar as liberalism is itself redolent of this Calvinist form of pseudo-individualism, Arendt demonstrates an alternative model even as it remains tangled with its theological origins. (shrink)

Although Arendt rejects all manifestations of what she calls “the absolute,” the way that theology trumps politics, she yet overlooks the theological basis of one of her most cherished models of political origins, the story of the Mayflower Compact. Arendt sees the Mayflower Compact as affording a basis for a community that is joined only through mutual promising, allowing a maximal amount of individualism and struggle within a collectively determined entity. Yet she downplays the role that theology serves in supporting (...) this compact. In overlooking the connection between the Pilgrim’s ideology and Rousseau’s concept of the general will which has its own Calvinist origins, Arendt evinces a tendency to forgive a basis for politics in America which she vehemently rejects in the European context. Insofar as liberalism is itself redolent of this Calvinist form of pseudo-individualism, Arendt demonstrates an alternative model even as it remains tangled with its theological origins. (shrink)

Although critical of what she calls the `antipolitical' forces of love and sovereignty, Arendt reluctantly embraces these aspects as the basis of politics itself. I explain this paradox by arguing that Arendt seeks to balance Greek and Roman notions of freedom with modern conceptions of the will. The solipsistic will poses a threat to politics. Yet the will is a fact of modern life and cannot be ignored. I argue that despite her embrace of classical understandings of freedom as contingency, (...) Arendt seeks to limit contingency and even freedom itself. She does this to accommodate the will which must have some sense of agency and continuity in order to be able to function at all. Arendt argues that sovereignty can, if properly constrained, produce a `certain limited reality' and can serve as a basis for politics. I claim that Arendt sacrifices her classical ideals, allowing for the possibility of a modern, lesser version of freedom. (shrink)

In this essay, I comment on Andrew Benjamin’s recent book, Working with Walter Benjamin. I claim that in this book, Professor Benjamin has done a great deal to illuminate certain complicated aspects of Walter Benjamin’s philosophy. In particular, I focus on his distinction between theology and religion, his treatment of divine violence and the ways that it differs from any human actions, and the nature of what Professor Benjamin calls counter-measures, that is measures which not only challenge but actually unmake (...) certain aspects of our contemporary sense of reality and temporality. (shrink)

In this essay, I will describe the way that Peter Fitzpatrick takes a deep dive into law in its most abstract and mythopoetic form. I will argue that in doing so, Fitzpatrick reveals the way that an intangible and ethereal non thing can and does shape laws in all of their authority and violence. By looking at this strata of legal formation, Fitzpatrick demonstrates the way that law bridges the gap between its own non-being and its power in the world. (...) He shows us not only how this works but also how in some ways this process can be resisted and diverted, how the violence of law can sometimes be mitigated by its own mythopoetic sources. In doing so, Fitzpatrick reveals the inner logics, the determining myths and abstractions that suggest, not only the foundations of law, but also the possibility of other laws, other forms of engagement and authority. (shrink)

In a footnote of Monolingualism of the Other Derrida describes the plot of a ‘Japanese film whose name [he does] not know,’ but which presents a familial history of incest, violence and tattoos, and which relates to the dream of his style, his ‘ductus,’ what he wants to make arrive to language. By analysing this film together with other instances of tattooing in Derrida's body of work, this essay will show how, if Derrida's dreamt style is a colourful tattoo, this (...) is because his texts are an undecidable inscription, a violent penetration and loving transfusion, between images and words. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that atheism is different from secularism. Secularism is based on a faux elimination of theology which effectively preserves that theology in the guise of overcoming it. To achieve atheism (a term that I draw from the work of Maria Aristodemou), I argue that one needs to directly confront the theological element in order to come to terms with it. In this essay I look at how two political theological thinkers, Nietzsche and Benjamin, accomplish this. Nie-tzsche (...) accomplishes atheism via his thesis of the “death of God,” a death that is not always literal but which creates a space for human life that is not determined by theological terms. Benjamin does the same thing with his idea that God vacates divine powers of judgment and determination in order to allow an atheistic space where human beings can engage in their own self-determination (even as the notion of God remains to challenge any would be human spokespersons for that role). I ultimately argue that atheism and anarchism are related concepts based not just on a rejection of certain forms of theology and all forms of archism, but also in terms of the way they allow a posi-tive and undetermined human response. (shrink)

In this short response to Balibar’s article, I discuss what I consider to be some of the most radical implications of Balibar’s notion of transindividualism. Specifically, I argue that in his reading of Marx, Spinoza and Freud, Balibar complicates not only the categories of the individual and the mass but also even the way that these two concepts are connected, along with a more general subversion of the most fundamental building blocks of capitalism. Balibar shows that communism is already present (...) and active within the heart of alienation, materiality and dialectical relationality and in this way can neither be rooted out nor denied its aleatory presence and possibility. (shrink)

Benjamin has long been known for his literary and aesthetic theory but political theorists, as well as other scholars who are interested in questions of politics, tend to downplay (or simply not notice) his contributions to an actionable rhetorical-political discourse. In terms of a politics that speaks directly to the ongoing crisis of global capitalism, existing power arrangements, and the effective depoliticization of the vast majority of people living under such conditions (very much including advanced liberal capitalist democracies such as (...) the United States), it often seems that Benjamin might not have all that much to say.That, at least, is the way that he is often read. Marxists, if they pay attention to .. (shrink)

In The Ethical Fantasy of Rhetorical Theory, Ira Allen does much more than give us a theory of rhetoric. He gives us a map of reality, of how we make the world real to ourselves, how we convince one another of its realness, even as what we so deem is constantly changing. This book is a primer on how the fact of radical contingency is not in and of itself fatal to the project of human life and politics. On the (...) contrary, for Allen, it is the source of human life and politics. In his careful and elegant way of thinking Allen shows us how out of the chaos and swirl of all that is, we manage nonetheless to continuously produce a tension between what we claim the world... (shrink)

I look at what Walter Benjamin calls the “magic of matter,” a silent form of communication between material objects, including our bodies. This communion exists even when bodies are separated as they are during the pandemic and becomes especially sensible to us when the physical presence of others is removed.

Many theorists promote a decentralized politics but very few of them practice this decentralization textually. In this essay, I engage with three techniques Benjamin employs to decenter his authority in the text: allegory, montage and the production of text as “pure means.” Taken together, these practices amount to what I am calling Benjamin’s use of a “black flashlight.” Rather than illuminate his text with his own knowledge, seeking to win the reader over by persuasion and textual authority, Benjamin seeks to (...) obscure and complicate any meaning. He attempts to have his text fail to deliver a final verdict to the reader. The obscure, pitch black light Benjamin sheds on his own and other texts leaves us as readers to our own devices, deprived as we are of the usual guidance of the author. In this way, Benjamin not only encourages but requires the reader’s own intervention, a model for the anarchist politics he also describes in the text. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the distinction between neoliberalism and the Westphalian order that is said to precede it are all facets of one and the same phenomenon: archism. Archism is a style of politics based on rule and division. Looking at the work of Derrida, Foucault and Benjamin, I examine the inner workings of archism and how it can be resisted. Above all, I consider the notion of the ‘archeon’; that privileged perch from which the state or law (...) can judge without itself being subject to that judgment. The archeon, I argue is the central node of archism that allows itself to insinuate into any number of myriad forms without appearing to be the same phenomenon. By looking at the way Benjamin subverts the theological origins of the archeon with the idea of a God who abandons the position of judgment, I show a model for how to think differently about archism such that we do not seem eternally fated to choose between the same false dichotomies over and over again. (shrink)

In his parable “Abraham,” Franz Kafka offers us a narrative wherein the call that motivates Abraham to attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac is not perceived by Abraham alone but has many other, unintended interlocutors as well. Kafka tells us that besides the “real Abraham”—that is, the one that we all know about, someone who “already had everything, and yet was to be raised still higher” —there is “another Abraham” or possibly even several other Abrahams. One other Abraham, Kafka tells (...) us, “was prepared to satisfy the demand for a sacrifice immediately, with the promptness of a waiter, but was unable to bring it off because he could not get away, being indispensable; the.. (shrink)

In the Author’s Note that introduces the Life of Pi, Yann Martel claims that he first heard of Pi in a coffee shop in India. A chance acquaintance tells him, “I have a story that will make you believe in God” (LP, vii).[i] The story concerns the life of an Indian boy who grows up surrounded by the animals of his father’s zoo. When Pi is sixteen, his family decides to emigrate. His father sells off the animals to an (...) American zoo and the family travels with them across the Pacific. The steamer sinks during a storm and Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger. The hyena attacks the zebra and then the orangutan, devouring both. He, in turn, is killed and eaten by the tiger. Pi stays alive by acting as the tiger’s zookeeper. Feeding it with the fish he catches and giving it water from the solar stills that he finds on the lifeboat, he survives until the boat, carried by the equatorial current, reaches the shores of Mexico. (shrink)

The intertwining: the recursion of the seer and the seen -- Artificial intelligence and the phenomenology of flesh -- Aesthetic education and the project of being human -- The intertwining of incommensurables: Yann Martel's life of Pi -- Flesh and the limits of self-making -- Violence and embodiment -- Excessive presence and the image -- Politics and freedom -- Sovereignty and alterity -- Political violence -- Public space -- Sustaining the other: tolerance as a positive ideal -- Forgiveness and (...) incarnation. (shrink)

In this article I respond to James Martel’s essay ‘ Amo: Volu ut sis : Love, willing, and Arendt’s reluctant embrace of sovereignty’. Martel offers us a provocative account of how Arendt might have attenuated her most severe rejections of the concept of sovereignty in light of the necessity of some version of sovereignty in modern times. However, I argue that Martel misreads Arendt, drawing inferences from Arendt’s inner/outer distinction that do not follow from Arendt’s own (...) logic. Instead of this distinction, I claim that Arendt’s rejection of sovereignty must be understood in the context of her affirmation of natality, and that a consistent reading of Arendt reveals an unstinting rejection of sovereignty, for both good and ill. (shrink)