Overview
This volume brings together scholars of philosophy, law, and literature, including prominent Derrideans alongside activist scholars, to elucidate and expand upon an important project of Derrida's final years, the seminars he conducted on the death penalty from 1999 to 2001. Deconstructing the Death Penalty provides remarkable insight into Derrida's ethical and political work. Beyond exploring the implications of Derrida's thought on capital punishment and mass incarceration, the contributors also elucidate the philosophical groundwork for his subsequent deconstructions of sovereign power and the human/animal divide. Because Derrida was concerned with the logic of the death penalty, rather than the death penalty itself, his seminars have proven useful to scholars and activists opposing all forms of state sanctioned killing. The volume establishes Derrida's importance for continuing debates on capital punishment, mass incarceration, and police brutality. At the same time, by deconstructing the theologico-political logic of the death penalty, it works to construct a new, versatile abolitionism, one capable of confronting all forms the death penalty might take.
Full Product Details
Author: Kelly Oliver ,
Stephanie Straub ,
Katie Chenoweth ,
Lisa Guenther
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Imprint: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 9780823280100
ISBN 10: 0823280101
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 03 July 2018
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Deconstructing the Death Penalty is an important collection of essays on a single work by Jacques Derrida. Among its authors' impressive credentials is their rich knowledge of the philosopher's corpus of work, manifest on every page. Given that these seminars are at the core of Derrida's life-long and, in his latter years, explicit and over-riding concern with sovereignty, with the human and the animal, and with state violence, the attention this volume devotes to them is of crucial importance. It offers an indispensable reckoning with deconstruction's legacy and relevance to current debates around the question of sovereignty and the state's monopoly on violence. -- David Lloyd * University of California, Riverside *
Deconstructing the Death Penalty is an important collection of essays on a single work by Jacques Derrida. Among its authors' impressive credentials is their rich knowledge of the philosopher's corpus of work, manifest on every page. Given that these seminars are at the core of Derrida's life-long and, in his latter years, explicit and over-riding concern with sovereignty, with the human and the animal, and with state violence, the attention this volume devotes to them is of crucial importance. It offers an indispensable reckoning with deconstruction's legacy and relevance to current debates around the question of sovereignty and the state's monopoly on violence.---David Lloyd, University of California, Riverside
Author Information
Kelly Oliver (Edited By) Kelly Oliver is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, where she also holds appointments in the departments of African-American Diaspora Studies, Film Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. She is the author of more than one hundred articles, fifteen scholarly books, and three novels. Stephanie Straub (Edited By) Stephanie Straub is completing a PhD in English at Vanderbilt University.
