Dead Neighbor Archives. Jews, Muslims, and the Enemy’s Two Bodies Cover Image

Archiwa martwego bliźniego. Żydzi, muzułmanie i dwa ciała wroga
Dead Neighbor Archives. Jews, Muslims, and the Enemy’s Two Bodies

Author(s): Kathleen Biddick
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Political Theory
Published by: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN
Keywords: Giorgio Agamben; Eric Santner; Carl Schmitt; political theology; typological damage; sovereignty; undead Muslim;

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses recent works by Giorgio Agamben and Eric Santner, who have interpreted Carl Schmitt’s ideas in the context of left-wing political theology. The article traces how the figure of the undead Muslim recurs in the various philosophers and theologians referred to by these two authors. In this way, it shows how contemporary messianic thinkers unknowingly mourned their ‘dead neighbours’, traumatic irritants from which a messianic pearl was born. In order for this pearl to glow with a miraculous light (as Agamben and Santner would wish it to), modern thinking must engage in an act of neighbour-love, whereby it embraces the untimely, undead excarnations (disembodiments) of a history of typological damage. Otherwise, these traumatised and traumatising neighbours remain undead, driven by critical theories of sovereignty.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 26
  • Page Range: 151-177
  • Page Count: 27
  • Language: Polish
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