Is the new materialist language of agential realism really an instance of what Niklaus Largier calls figuration? How did we transition from a use of the term “agent,” meaning conduit or receptive tool, an actor moved by an other, to the term “agential,” meaning immanent to itself, meaning matter that has its own imagination, even its own desire? Largier’s brief investigation of new materialist language in chapter six of Figures of Possibility ultimately serves as a provocative digression, a counterexample underscoring the overall thrust of his book.
The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, which continues Agamben’s interest in the history of sovereignty and the exception, brings the discourse of theology to the forefront of questions about the nature of modern political economy and government. Agamben’s claim is that theology has left its indelible signature on and therefore deeply animates modern life. But how? […]