ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 1|11 pages

Introduction

Approaching the Problem of Sacrifice in Law, Literature, and Philosophy

chapter 2|11 pages

Sacrifice and the Origin of Law

chapter 3|21 pages

Towards a Sacrificial Aneconomy?

Georges Bataille and the Aporia of Sacrifice

chapter 5|21 pages

A We Not Modeled on the I

The Law of Law, and Futurity

chapter 6|23 pages

Homo Sacrificus

Sacrificial Economization and Neoliberal Subjectivity

chapter 7|11 pages

Law, Authority, and the Sovereign Exception

The (Im)possibility of Political Agency

chapter 8|37 pages

The Gift of Time and the Hour of Sacrifice

A Philosophical-Anthropological Analysis of the Deep Difference between Political Liberal and Populist Politics

chapter 9|19 pages

Sacrificial Liberalism

The Politics of Zeal and its Selective Denial in Rawls’s Political Liberalism