1st Edition
Law's Sacrifice Approaching the Problem of Sacrifice in Law, Literature, and Philosophy
This volume examines the relationship between law and sacrifice as a crucial nexus for theorizing the dynamics of creation, destruction, transcendence, and violence within the philosophical and legal discourse of western society.
At a time of populist political unrest, what philosophical and theoretical resources are available for conceptualizing the discontent that seems to emanate from practically every sphere of society? What narrative strategies have been employed within literary, theological, philosophical, and legal discourse to tame or mystify human violence? Engaging with the work of preeminent theorists of sacrifice, such as Georges Bataille, René Girard, Giorgio Agamben, and Jacques Derrida this collection examines from an interdisciplinary perspective the sacrificial logic that characterizes the cultural and political dynamics of law in society.
The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the field of legal theory and philosophy.
Table of Contents
Contributing Authors
- Introduction: Approaching the Problem of Sacrifice in Law, Literature, and Philosophy
- Sacrifice and the Origin of Law
- Towards a Sacrificial Aneconomy? Georges Bataille and the Aporia of Sacrifice
- (Misguided) Self-transcendence and the Imagination of Sacrifice
- A We Not Modeled on the I, the Law of Law, and Futurity
- Homo Sacrificus: Sacrificial Economization and Neoliberal Subjectivity
- Law, Authority, and the Sovereign Exception: The (Im)possibility of Political Agency
- The Gift of Time and the Hour of Sacrifice: A Philosophical-Anthropological Analysis of the Deep Difference Between Political Liberal and Populist Politics
- Sacrificial Liberalism: The Politics of Zeal and its Selective Denial in Rawls’s Political Liberalism
- The Sacrifice of Law’s Madness
Brian W. Nail
Wolfgang Palaver
Marie Chabbert
Arthur Cools
A. Samuel Kimball
Brian W. Nail
Richard Hajarizadeh
Johan Van der Walt
Richard Mailey
Jeffrey A. Ellsworth
Biography
Brian W. Nail, Professor of English, Florida State College at Jacksonville
Jeffrey A. Ellsworth, Assistant Professor of Law and Society, Ramapo College of New Jersey