The Politics of Nothing : On Sovereignty

The Politics of Nothing considers the implication of the theological turn taken by theorists of sovereignty, who have laid bare the implicitly ontological assumptions at the heart of modern notions of the political. This collection of essays takes that insight as a point of departure, and considers how sovereignty might be reconsidered when divested of ontology, when understood to be founded in the nothing.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Culture, Theory and Critique.

This book questions what sovereignty looks like when it is de-ontologised; when the nothingness at the heart of claims to sovereignty is unmasked and laid bare. Drawing on critical thinkers in political theology, such as Schmitt, Agamben, Nancy, Blanchot, Paulhan, The Politics of Nothing asks what happens to the political when considered in the frame of the productive potential of the nothing? The answers are framed in terms of the deep intellectual histories at our disposal for considering these fundamental questions, carving out trajectories inspired by, for example, Peter Lombard, Shakespeare and Spinoza. This book offers a series of sensitive and creative reflections that suggest the possibilities offered by thinking through sovereignty via the frame of nihilism.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Culture, Theory and Critique.