Sovereignty without Mastery
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13025185 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Patrick McLane (0000-0002-4845-9182, University of Alberta, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-15 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-27 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Societies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2075-4698 • E-ISSN: 2075-4698 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/soc3010001 |
| OpenAlex | W2010092967 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
In The Beast and the Sovereign v.1, Derrida argues that classical sovereignty is linked to the performative act of declaring oneself master. Thus, each sovereign asserts a distinction between the masterful self and the mastered other. Derrida contends that the sovereign distinction between self and other maps onto a distinction between sovereign autonomy and a mechanical determination said to characterize others of all kinds. This gives rise to a differentiated binary between responsibility, capacity and restraint on the one side against reaction, instinct and danger on the other, which, Derrida suggests, operates across traditional separations, such as man/animal, man/machine, mind/body and, of course, sovereign and beast. This paper argues that Derrida’s reading of Paul Celan and Georges Bataille may be understood as a pursuit of an alternative sovereignty. This alternative sovereignty would be without mastery and its binaries. I suggest that Derrida finds such an alternative sovereignty in the “majesty” of poetry, which, in his own poetic gesture, allows him to upset traditional distinctions
Art · Autonomy · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Performative utterance · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Sovereignty · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Political Theology and Sovereignty
| Highly cited | No |
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