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Requiring no prior knowledge of the series, Colby Dickinson explains why Agamben's Homer Sacer series is one of the most significant philosophical texts of the past century. He unpacks key concepts including sovereignty, potentiality, form-of-life, the state of exception, inoperativity, glory and the messianic as they appear and reappear.

Introduces the most significant concepts and histories in Giorgio Agamben's central workThe first introductory text to Giorgio Agamben's 9-volume magnum opus, the Homo Sacer series Unpacks Agamben's central concepts, introducing them to new readers of the series and adding nuance for readers more versed in Agamben's philosophyRequiring no prior knowledge of the series, Colby Dickinson explains why Agamben's Homer Sacer is one of the most significant philosophical texts of the past century. He explores key concepts including sovereignty, potentiality, form-of-life, the state of exception, inoperativity, glory and the messianic as they appear and reappear throughout the series.In Homo Sacer, Agamben provides a delicate and complex interweaving of his views on a wide range of themes including sovereignty, and the state of exception, the Aristotelean distinction between potentiality and actuality, through to the impossibility of stating the existence of language in words and the form-of-life lived beyond all forms of law

'By delving into the history of the fetish-object among both modern and contemporary commentators, this book highlights the fetish-object's role as a philosophical and religious concept of the highest significance. Historically, fetishes are implicated in specific struggles for sovereign (political) and/or religious (hierarchical) power, with their interwoven symbols defined as the primary location for transcendence in our world. This book defines the political consequences of fetish-objects within a western cultural, and primarily theological context through a comparative approach of various literatures on fetish-objects—anthropological to the psychological, Marxist to the theological. It reconceives of fetishes as a form of resistance to oppressive structures, something which motivated Christians themselves historically, and shaped our western understanding of the sacraments far more than has been acknowledged. Taking up this conversation likewise holds forth the possibility of reconceptualizing how fetish-objects and sacramental presences both speak profoundly to our late-modern selves.' --back cover

The logic of the 'as if' and the (non)existence of God: an inquiry into the nature of belief -- Aesthetics among the metaphysical ruins: the poetry of Paul Celan seen through the works of Jacques Derrida and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe -- On language and its profanation: beyond representation in the poetic theory of Giorgio Agamben -- The spiritual and creative failures of representation, or on the art of writing

Despite the irreducible non-equivalence of individual experiences of suffering, there is a solidarity possible among sufferers especially during times of collective crisis. This essay focuses on the suffering of the disciple Peter in order to formulate a model for suffering that resonates deeply with other, more recent accounts. Peter's suffering is linked with Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, as well as the work of certain German political theologians, in order to show how it is our human inability to adequately respond to suffering that gives us the existential vulnerability we need in order to stand in solidarity with others who suffer too—the primal element of Christian love. At a precarious time when so many feel a vulnerability perhaps never felt before, such vulnerability potentially transforms us into more responsible social agents and political actors.

By delving into the history of the fetish-object among both modern and contemporary commentators, this book highlights the fetish-object's role as a philosophical and religious concept of the highest significance. Historically, fetishes are implicated in specific struggles for sovereign (political) and/or religious (hierarchical) power, with their interwoven symbols defined as the primary location for transcendence in our world. This book defines the political consequences of fetish-objects within a western cultural, and primarily theological context through a comparative approach of various literatures on fetish-objects—anthropological to the psychological, Marxist to the theological. It reconceives of fetishes as a form of resistance to oppressive structures, something which motivated Christians themselves historically, and shaped our western understanding of the sacraments far more than has been acknowledged. Taking up this conversation likewise holds forth the possibility of reconceptualizing how fetish-objects and sacramental presences both speak profoundly to our late-modern selves. ; https://ecommons.luc.edu/facultybooks/1183/thumbnail.jpg

Multiple philosophical-theological efforts in the last century, from W. Benjamin to J. Caputo, have been centered on a messianic opposition to normative structures, a challenge that invokes a long history in the West of breaking down the codes of ordered, civilized and religious society. That such an apocalyptic fervor is nothing new to the history of theology should not surprise us. What should surprise us, however, is how infrequently we are able to see the larger pattern behind these particular movements. Taking up the recent emergence of 'queer theology' as the current manifestation of such a trend, I want to isolate and clarify the theological implications of comprehending the existence of humanity as a state of constantly 'being between'. What I argue is that developing a hermeneutics of eschatology that takes such tensions as foundational rather than merely heterodox indicates that the opposition of grace and law is to be understood not as a dualism to be overcome but as the structure of history itself. The question I am posing is this: to what degree does the queering or subversion of theological normativity, or the development of a 'theology against itself', allow us to subvert identitarian politics and to challenge the social and religious institutions that we are a part of? It is through the lens of 'queer theology' and its questioning of the existence of normativity itself that we are simultaneously returned to the basic structures that guide human life, while, at the same time, propelled forward into new configurations of resistance to just such structures. By firmly placing ourselves within this 'queer critique' we see the 'already-not yet' tension of eschatological thought not simply in religious terms, but in ones that reorient our relationship to the political and social orders of this world, calling for a permanent re-envisioning of norms as the individual—and the church—are found to be perpetually—and edifyingly—'against themselves'.

Over the course of Judeo-Christian history, the boundaries endemic to its theological thought have been dualistic in nature. The clashes between the orthodox and the heretical, nomianism and anti-nomianism, apophatic thought and cataphatic thought, and theology from above versus theology from below have been all too evident. Recent trends in the field of Political Theology have developed a sub-genre of Radical Theology—best exemplified by the work of Ward Blanton, Clayton Crockett, Jeffrey W. Robbins, and Noëlle Vahanian—which is attempting to subvert such dualisms in hopes of rejecting traditional Western models of Onto-theology in favor of a theology that sparks genuine creation within the political realm. The article that follows is an assessment of the vitality of such an Insurrectionist project in terms of its ability to follow through on the promise of construction. All too often, projects of deconstruction are left stranded amidst the wreckage which they have wrought without any hope of something arising from the ashes. To what extent is the Insurrectionist project similar, and how does it differ? It is to these questions that we now turn.

Through a brief history of antinomian thought within the modern period, and the inspection of two contemporary responses to the 'antinomian impulse', I refocus the antinomian debate as being, not necessarily a heretical endeavor, but rather a dialectic between history and memory, structure and experience. Rather than portray antinomianism as a threat to the system which needs to be removed, perhaps we can learn to perceive it as a 'weak messianic force' moving through all constituted (religious) identities, not, then, as the end of 'Christianity' as an organized religion, but its original proclamation, ever in need of greater reformation.