States of Violence – States of Exception: Probing the Limits of Sovereign Power

Seminar description

In 1922, Carl Schmitt advanced his well-known definition that ‘Sovereign is he who decides on the exception’ (‘Souverän ist, wer über den Ausnahmezustand entscheidet’). Far from being a mere extraordinary constitutional situation, however, Ausnahmezustände expanded considerably during the twentieth century. The difference between exception and norm became indistinct, while the state’s decision to use physical force faced new legitimacy challenges from society.

This seminar explores the possibilities of a more accurate historical account of this major development. We will discuss Ausnahmezustände in relation to both ‘extraordinary’ and ‘ordinary’ situations and practices: revolutionary upheavals, post-war chaos, martial law conditions, camps, policing, penitentiary systems, border regimes or legal state killing. Open to researchers across disciplines, the seminar welcomes all those who are broadly interested in questions of sovereignty, power and state violence. It will consist of two all day workshop sessions (January 30 and March 1), organised around readings as well as research presentations. Both sessions will feature discussions by guest speakers.

• Programme - 30 January 2013
• Programme - 1 March 2013

Readings

• Agamben, Giorgio. State of exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005; translated by Kevin Attell.
• Arendt, Hannah. Between past and future. 8 exercises in political thought. New York: Viking Press, 1987 [1961].
• Fraenkel, Ernst. The dual state. A contribution to the theory of dictatorship. New York: Octagon Books, 1969 [1941].
• Lüdtke, Alf, Michael Wildt, and Gadi Algazi, eds. Staats-Gewalt: Ausnahmezustand und Sicherheitsregimes: Historische Perspektiven. Göttinger Gespräche zur Geschichtswissenschaft 27. Göttingen: Wallstein-Verlag, 2008.
• Sarat, Austin, and Jennifer L. Culbert. States of violence. War, capital punishment, and letting die. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Schmitt, Carl. Political theology. Four chapters on the concept of sovereignty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005 [1922/1970]; translated by George Schwab.
• Schmitt, Carl. Die Diktatur: Von den Anfängen des modernen Souveränitätsgedankens bis zum proletarischen Klassenkampf. 6th ed. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1994 [1928].