Which violences persist, articulated in ever-new forms, in the aftermath of war? What accounts for these reshuffled patterns of violence?…
Rhetorics of violence after the war
sacrifice
Martyrdom as sacrificial witness
I am happy to have been invited to participate in this forum on oaths—these powerful declarations—because I have been wrestling…
Theologies of American exceptionalism: Cohen and Kahn
This is the fifth and final installment in the "Theologies of American exceptionalism" series. In this final post, Shaul Magid…
One nation under Gun?
How could a human invention hold such sway over us as a people? Garry Wills argues that the gun is, for…
A response to critics
I knew that my new book, Political Theology, would be controversial. It covers a lot of ground; it produces odd…
Ground: Zero
Hence, the tenets of liberal positive theory are opposed in Kahn’s book via the recourse to questions of state violence,…
American exceptionalism redux
I find Kahn's book as a whole less coherent than some others have. One issue I want to raise is…
Not for the squeamish
Paul Kahn has written a remarkable meditation on Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology. A truly adequate response would undoubtedly require a…
Political theology and political existentialism
“At stake in our political life,” Paul Kahn observes, “has been not our capacity to be reasonable, but our capacity…
Paul Kahn’s mis-prognosis of America’s social imaginary
As I argued in my previous post, there are indications that Paul Kahn subscribes to Carl Schmitt’s belief in the…