The State of Sovereignty: Lessons from the Political Fictions of Modernity

by Gratton, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781438437859
• ISBN10: 1438437854
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-06-09
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

Considers the problems of sovereignty through the work of Rousseau, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben, and Derrida.

Author Biography

Peter Gratton is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the coeditor (with John Panteleimon Manoussakis) of Traversing the Imaginary: Richard Kearney and the Postmodern Challenge.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Vase of Soissons and the Lessons of Sovereignty	p. 3
The Noble Thesis- and the Ends of Pagan Sovereignty	p. 7
Where Sovereignty Lies Today	p. 22
Rousseau and the Right of Life and Death over the Body Politic	p. 27
The State of Sovereignty after the Social Contract	p. 30
Contracting the Sovereign	p. 33
Lessons from "LÆartifice et le jeu" of Sovereignty	p. 39
Men and Citizens, Life and Death	p. 43
The Sovereign Pardon	p. 48
Arendt's Archaeology of Sovereignty	p. 63
The Fragmented Past and The Future of the Political	p. 66
Beginning Again: The Arche of the Political	p. 79
Finding a Home in the Political	p. 88
"The World is at Stake": Sovereignty and the Right to Have Rights	p. 95
Sovereign Totalitarianism	p. 98
The Rise of the Nation-State	p. 100
Policing the State	p. 104
The Right to Have Rights	p. 110
Torturing Sovereignty: Foucault's Regicide in Theory	p. 113
Genealogies in the Multiple	p. 114
Sovereign Madness	p. 120
Histories of the State of Sovereignty	p. 130
The Rise of the Nation-State	p. 136
Bio-political Sovereignty	p. 139
Foucault, Schmitt, and "the King Who Rules but Does not Govern"	p. 141
Beyond the Sovereign Decision	p. 149
Sovereign Freedom, or Freedom from Sovereignty	p. 157
What More Is There to Say?: Agamben and the Hyperbole of Sovereignty	p. 161
The Sacrifice of History	p. 165
Homo Sacer: The Significance of Words	p. 170
From Homo Sacer to Vir Sacer	p. 176
The Glory of Another Sovereignty	p. 179
Sovereign Relations	p. 181
Last Words: The Language of Sovereignty and Noo-Politics	p. 186
The Hyperbole that Remains	p. 194
Derrida and the Limits of Sovereignty's Reason: Freedom, Equality, but Not Fraternity	p. 201
Le Très Haut of Mount Moriah	p. 207
Freedom, Equality, but Not Fraternity	p. 216
Conclusion	p. 227
Notes	p. 233
Bibliography	p. 269
Index	p. 283
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