Hannah Arendt noted in 1969 that Georges Sorel’s remark in 1906 — that “the problems of violence still remain very obscure” remained true. An additional half-century has elapsed since Sorel made his observation, but his remark remains true. The … Continue reading “Introduction”
Thinking Through Violence
A new series beginning in May, 2011.Based on a panel convened in 2009 under the auspices of the Humanities Initiative at New York University, the essays in this dossier move away from the assumption that to treat violence as an enduring phenomenon in its own right, with its productive and repressive qualities, is to endorse it. Rather, observing both its persistence and its specificity across varied contexts, the authors ask what kind of work violence does, and how diverse readings of violence, including the act of naming it, are necessary in attempting a counter-intuitive genealogy of the phenomenon and its implications for politics.Dossier edited by Elena Bellina, J. Martin Daughtry, Crystal Parikh, Arvind Rajagopal and Magdalena Sabat. Transcription by Magdalena Sabat. Essays by Arvind Rajagopal, Allen Feldman, Banu Bargu, Drucilla Cornell, and Mary Louise Pratt.
Forging Life into a Weapon
banu barguMy remarks are structured around a consideration of four images.These images will, I hope, enable us to confront the question of violence, of a specific kind of violence, by bringing it to us in its (almost) immediate actuality, in … Continue reading “Forging Life into a Weapon”
Politics of Grieving
drucilla cornellIn my work, I have defended a nonviolent ethic through Derrida and Levinas, which begins with the commandment, “thou shall not kill.” But this ethic certainly does not end there. My book The Philosophy of the Limit gives us … Continue reading “Politics of Grieving”
The Becoming Non-State of the State
Allen FeldmanMy ethnographic work in Northern Ireland and South Africa and on the current war on terror has been an engagement with forms of life, communities, subjects, and silenced sovereignties, navigating, drowning, surviving, and dying, within ecotonesof informalized state violence. … Continue reading “The Becoming Non-State of the State”
Violence and Language
mary louise prattIf you work on Latin America then you know that there is a field of study there called “violentology,” and there are specialists whom you call violentólogos, particularly in Colombia, where the question of violence has become a kind … Continue reading “Violence and Language”
Afterword
Social Text CollectiveMichel Foucault observed that, although the head of the king had been cut off, in political theory the king remained in his place.For Foucault, theory did not appear able to think about politics without an organizing center, although in … Continue reading “Afterword”