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Category: States of Exception

“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule” (Walter Benjamin). Political theology takes up considerations of law and its exception, with a critical eye to the tradition of the oppressed. States of exception considers questions of law, governance, sovereignty, and violence.

Resources

Bibliography:

  1. Paul W. Kahn, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (2011)
  2. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
  3. Jacques Derrida, The Beast and the Sovereign (2001-2002)
  4. Ted Smith, Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (2014)
  5.  Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: for a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (2011)
  6. Nicole Loraux, The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens (2001)

Relevant Journal Articles:

  • Andrew Krinks, “The Color of Transcendence: Whiteness, Sovereignty, and the Theologico-Political,” Political Theology 19, no. 2 (2018): 79-98
  • Kyle Lambelet, “Lovers of God’s Law: The Politics of Higher Law and the Ethics of Civil Disobedience,” Political Theology 19, no. 7 (2018): 593-610
  • Bonnie Honig, “Is Man a ‘Sabbatical Animal’?: Agamben, Rosenzweig, Heschel, Arendt,” Political Theology 20, no. 1 (2019): 1-23
  • Sarah Hammerschlag, “Believing in the USA: Derrida, Melville and the Great American Charlatan,” Political Theology 21, no. 1-2 (2020): 56-70
Gender conflict over temple entry and the limits of legalizing identity politics in contemporary India

The Sabarimala judgment of the Indian Supreme Court has been widely celebrated in liberal-progressive circles for its inclusionary gesture of upholding the right of women to enter Hindu temples as public places of religious worship. But to make sex political, what we need is the discovery of a new language of sovereignty that defies and exceeds the identitarian logic of inclusion and exclusion

The Middle Place

We must re-imagine what it is to be human together. That is both a religious and a legal project, in my view.

Manufacturing Dissent:  The DC Insurrection and the Cycle of Law-Preserving and Law-Making Violence

We are shocked. Morally outraged. How could a US president tout “law and order” to incite a blatant attack on “American democracy” and “the rule of law,” encouraging his supporters to storm the US capitol? Commentators decry such hypocrisy, stating the obvious contradiction between US constitutional law and violent coups. My contention in this essay is that no such contradiction exists.

Imagining the (Theological) Whole

There is no social location from which an understanding of the whole can emerge, let alone a social location from which wisdom can emerge. How shall we avoid nihilism? I look to the hills, from whence shall come our salvation?

Unexpected Guides in a World Undone

Attending, caring, and listening may seem like small practices in light of the monumental challenges we face today. But it is through this everyday work that we are to discern and pursue a new common life.

Why We Should Prioritize Treating Younger Patients

It is consistent to say that everyone is equally intrinsically valuable by virtue of being human, and that death will deprive more future well-being from some. Focusing on the deprivation of future well-being will immediately bring up concerns.

Don’t Fall for False Tradeoffs

From an economic perspective, what we are all experiencing is as simple as it is painful: what we are experiencing is the voluntary and forced breaking down of the relationships we rely on to flourish as social creatures.

“This is not a time for indifference”:  The face of NYC social ministry in the midst of COVID-19

By the end of that first week our operations shifted and many of our staff, including myself, were set up in a senior center in Queens getting ready to boost our food distributions and our senior grab-and-go grocery bags. During that week we began to anticipate two major developments of this pandemic: the public health crisis and the ensuing economic hardship.

Restricting religious practice in the era of COVID-19: A de-westernised perspective on religious freedom with reference to the case of Greece

These restrictions must take into careful consideration the historicity of each religious tradition, the social influence of religious beliefs among its citizens, but also theological and exegetical specificities that influence the tradition’s adaptability to the current emergency. Without such thoughtful considerations and a close collaboration with trusted religious authorities, religious communities could be alienated, which can be disruptive in times that require rather unity of thought and action.

Others Amidst Pandemic: Friends, enemies, and in between

Differentiating journalists as enemies is always alarming, but especially so during a public health crisis.

Viral Sovereignty

In the face of COVID-19, we do not have the capacity to breathe, much less decide.

Spending Easter with the Angel of Death

God doesn’t tell us to go out and face death unnecessarily. The Israelites put lamb’s blood on their doorposts, a sign of their trust that God loved them and would spare them. But they knew better than to leave home. That would not have been trusting God, it would have been flouting God’s warnings.