This paper was presented at the 2011 Telos Conference, “Rituals of Exchange and States of Exception: Continuity and Crisis in Politics and Economics.”
When we consider the metaphysical foundations of our world, we must make a basic choice between a universal conception of metaphysics and a relativist one. This choice commits us to either of two possibilities for world order. With a universalist conception, world order will evolve through a gradual establishment of one universal metaphysical structure that will establish its universality everywhere. With the relativist conception, world order can only consist of a set of agreements and rituals that can be established between a number of separate spaces, each of which is organized according to its own metaphysical structure. The choice for one or the other of these perspectives is consequently a fundamental one that will have far-reaching consequences for our conception of politics in a global context.
In this video, Adrian Pabst interviews David Pan about the current issue of Telos, a special issue about Carl Schmitt’s Hamlet or Hecuba: The Intrusion of the Time into the Play. David has translated Schmitt’sHamlet or Hecuba and also co-edited the special issue together with Julia Lupton. The significance of this book for a proper understanding and assessment of Schmitt’s oeuvre can hardly be overstated. It highlights the centrality of culture and literature in his political thought, including the role of myth, theater, representation, and tragedy. The conversation with David also touches on the concrete contemporary relevance of these themes for politics, in particular a broader notion of truth and values than technocracy or managerialism.
Timothy Wong’s “Steward of the Dying Voice: The Intrusion of Horatio into Sovereignty and Representation” appears in Telos 153 (Winter 2010). Read the full version at TELOS Online website.
This article examines the issue of early modern sovereign succession and political representation through the figure of Horatio. Using Carl Schmitt’s comments on the “dying voice” in the first appendix of Hamlet or Hecuba, and his theory of political representation, this essay argues that Horatio represents the transitional space between the fading vestiges of political theology, and the first traces constituent sovereignty. In his role as mediator of the sovereign word of King Hamlet and the dying voice of Prince Hamlet, Horatio becomes the proto-constituent subject who signals the genesis of a reoriented political agency that is constituted by popular consent rather than authoritarian rule. Furthermore, Horatio is the paradoxical representative that both represents the body politic (in the sense of the King’s two bodies) to the people and the popular will to itself.
Drew Daniel’s “‘Neither Simple Allusions Nor True Mirrorings’: Seeing Double with Carl Schmitt” appears in Telos 153 (Winter 2010). Read the full version at TELOS Online website.
In response to recent criticisms of Schmitt’s argument as “tendentious” and symptomatic, this essay seeks to perform a reparative reading of the central claim of Hamlet or Hecuba for a substantial resemblance between the events within Shakespeare’s play and the murky circumstances surrounding the death of King James’s father, Lord Darnley. First, the historical archive surrounding Lord Darnley’s death is sounded for evidence that might support Schmitt’s claim and illuminate unresolved questions within the plot of Hamlet (in particular, the mysterious “sins” referred to by the Ghost). Secondly, the archive of James’s own published writings on sovereignty, demonology, and witchcraft are placed into relation with Jean Bodin’s similar writings, and brought to bear upon Schmitt’s reading of Shakespeare’s ghost scenes. The cruxes within Shakespeare’s play and Schmitt’s text about the ghost scene (“spirit of health” or “goblin damned”? Catholic or Protestant?) illuminate the relationship between sovereignty and demonology in early modern England: the two discourses are linked by the attempt to establish the divine status of sovereignty and the corresponding subordination of demons and ghosts to theologically established limits and laws. Departing from Schmitt’s initial arguments, this essay extends them in order to illuminate the political-theological terrain within which Hamlet functions.
If recent discussions of Schmitt in these pages have made a broad case for the centrality of culture for his thinking, the current issue both specifies and generalizes this approach. The specificity derives from our focus on one key text by Schmitt that is often passed over but is in fact crucial for understanding his work. The generality is a result of the breathtaking sweep of issues that this text opens up for the contributors to this issue: the relation of sovereignty to popular will, the ontological status of modernity, the role of myth in society, the representational structure of human existence, the relation of art and theology to the public sphere. These discussions take our understanding of Schmitt into new directions that draw out not just the aesthetic and cultural aspects of his thought, but also reveal the import of his methods for fundamental questions of epistemology and ontology. He arrives at such questions through the consideration of a single exemplary case: Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
This is the final part of a review of Jean-Claude Paye’s Global War on Liberty, recently published by Telos Press Publishing and available in our store. Part 1 of the review is here, and part 2 is here. The review will soon appear in full in the journal.
There is much to be admired in Paye’s path-breaking reflection on the nature of a new normative order that comes to life after the implementation of a permanent state of exception. And he must be congratulated for taking seriously what so many others have only announced, imagined, or theorized, and for performing the painstaking “archeological” work of uncovering the basic rules of formation of the new political regime that hides behind legal exceptionality. Still, towards the end of Global War on Liberty, Paye’s inability to provide a more innovative and thought-provoking critical conclusion is disappointing. Instead, Paye needlessly insists on retrieving the ideas of dictatorship and totalitarianism, as if those concepts could provide a grand conceptual finale to his study. Closing with these obsolete political concepts and labels does not do justice to the originality of Paye’s contribution and potentially diminishes its value. But there are two other errors that become obvious at the end of Global War on Liberty, and they are hard to reconcile with the rest of Paye’s analysis.
Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience and show you more relevant content. For more information, please see our privacy policy. By using our site, you agree to our use of cookies. OK
When we consider the metaphysical foundations of our world, we must make a basic choice between a universal conception of metaphysics and a relativist one. This choice commits us to either of two possibilities for world order. With a universalist conception, world order will evolve through a gradual establishment of one universal metaphysical structure that will establish its universality everywhere. With the relativist conception, world order can only consist of a set of agreements and rituals that can be established between a number of separate spaces, each of which is organized according to its own metaphysical structure. The choice for one or the other of these perspectives is consequently a fundamental one that will have far-reaching consequences for our conception of politics in a global context. 
This article examines the issue of early modern sovereign succession and political representation through the figure of Horatio. Using Carl Schmitt’s comments on the “dying voice” in the first appendix of Hamlet or Hecuba, and his theory of political representation, this essay argues that Horatio represents the transitional space between the fading vestiges of political theology, and the first traces constituent sovereignty. In his role as mediator of the sovereign word of King Hamlet and the dying voice of Prince Hamlet, Horatio becomes the proto-constituent subject who signals the genesis of a reoriented political agency that is constituted by popular consent rather than authoritarian rule. Furthermore, Horatio is the paradoxical representative that both represents the body politic (in the sense of the King’s two bodies) to the people and the popular will to itself. 
There is much to be admired in Paye’s path-breaking reflection on the nature of a new normative order that comes to life after the implementation of a permanent state of exception. And he must be congratulated for taking seriously what so many others have only announced, imagined, or theorized, and for performing the painstaking “archeological” work of uncovering the basic rules of formation of the new political regime that hides behind legal exceptionality. Still, towards the end of Global War on Liberty, Paye’s inability to provide a more innovative and thought-provoking critical conclusion is disappointing. Instead, Paye needlessly insists on retrieving the ideas of dictatorship and totalitarianism, as if those concepts could provide a grand conceptual finale to his study. Closing with these obsolete political concepts and labels does not do justice to the originality of Paye’s contribution and potentially diminishes its value. But there are two other errors that become obvious at the end of Global War on Liberty, and they are hard to reconcile with the rest of Paye’s analysis.
