Michel Foucault famously describes Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as a “cruel, ingenious cage” to be understood not as a “dream building…
Hosanna-Tabor in the religious freedom Panopticon
political theology
After the secular age
Just out from Verso Press, Simon Critchley's The Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology investigates the role of religion in…
There is Power in the Blog: Paul W. Kahn
There is Power in the Blog is hosting an eight-part discussion on Paul W. Kahn’s recent book Political Theology: Four…
A response to critics
I knew that my new book, Political Theology, would be controversial. It covers a lot of ground; it produces odd…
Jürgen Habermas on myth and ritual
This video is an excerpt of a lecture by Jürgen Habermas, delievered at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and…
CFP: Sovereignty, Representation and Authority
Pléyade, a biannual journal of Political Science published by the Centro de Análisis e Investigación Política, has issued a call…
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…
For a new migration of Abraham
At a moment when some of the theoretical gestures being inspired by old, new, or futuristic political theologies have become…
Democracy under exception
I agree with Kahn (and with Schmitt) about the fact that political theory should leave room for decision and exception.…
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…