When he died in 2004, Jacques Derrida left behind a vast legacy of
unpublished material, much of it in the form of written lectures. With
The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1, the University of Chicago Press
inaugurates an ambitious series, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and
Peggy Kamuf, translating these important works into English. The Beast
and the Sovereign, Volume 1 launches the series with Derrida’s
exploration of the persistent association of bestiality or animality
with sovereignty. In this seminar from 2001–2002, Derrida continues
his deconstruction of the traditional determinations of the human. The
beast and the sovereign are connected, he contends, because neither
animals nor kings are subject to the law—the sovereign stands above
it, while the beast falls outside the law from below. He then traces
this association through an astonishing array of texts, including La
Fontaine’s fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” Hobbes’s biblical
sea monster in Leviathan, D. H. Lawrence’s poem “Snake,”
Machiavelli’s Prince with its elaborate comparison of princes and
foxes, a historical account of Louis XIV attending an elephant
autopsy, and Rousseau’s evocation of werewolves in The Social
Contract. Deleuze, Lacan, and Agamben also come into critical play as
Derrida focuses in on questions of force, right, justice, and
philosophical interpretations of the limits between man and animal.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226144399
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter