Genealogies of Political Modernity

Description

What is political modernity? And how much of its concepts and structures has changed or remained the same with the advent of the so-called globalization? What does it mean, from a political perspective, that we live in a postmodern era? This book discusses these issues in light of the key authors and texts of the continental philosophical tradition: from Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben, from Thomas Hobbes to Michel Foucault. Looking at the roots of the current historical crisis that characterizes Western political regimes, this book gazes into the past in order to trace the possible development of our current global era, in which all the classical concepts and our symbolic resources seem to be called into question, leaving a vacuum of meaning for political action as much as for political theory. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: The Walking Tree Part 1: On Sovereignty 1 Rex Sacrorum: On the Origins and Evolution of Sovereign Power 2 Space and Sovereignty: A Reverse Perspective Part 2: Political Theologies 3 Encounters at the End of a World: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and the Tyranny of Values 4 Until the End of the World: René Girard, Carl Schmitt, and the Origins of Violence 5 Religion and Political Form: Schmitt contra Habermas Part 3: History and Archaeology 6 The Myth of Origin: Archaeology and History in the Work of Giorgio Agamben and René Girard 7 Imago Mortis, Imago Dei: An Archaeology of Political Sacrifice Notes Bibliography Name Index Subject Index