Diacritics

Slavoj Žižek's fascinating and complex attempt at an appropriation of the authentic legacy of Christianity for a revivified politics of universality is traced in the light of certain affinities to concepts of Carl Schmitt's political theology. It is argued that these two thinkers not only share a similar canon of (Christian) thinkers, but also an emphasis on the necessity of maintaining and/or reintroducing a distinction between friend and enemy for a properly political thought. Moreover, particular attention is paid to the way the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is enacted in several of Žižek's texts.