Deconstructing the Death Penalty: Derrida's Seminars and the New Abolitionism | by Kelly Oliver | Stephanie Straub | Katie Chenoweth | ‎ Fordham University Press | ‎ English | ‎ New Edition

Product description Review 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 From the Back Cover “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, RiversideThis 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.Contributors: Nicole Anderson, Katie Chenoweth, Lisa Guenther, Christina Howells, Peggy Kamuf, Kir Kuiken, Elissa Marder, Michael Naas, Kelly Oliver, Elizabeth Rottenberg, Kas Saghafi, Stephanie M. Straub, Adam Thurschwell, Sarah TysonKelly 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 is completing a PhD in English at Vanderbilt University. About the Author 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 is completing a PhD in English at Vanderbilt University.Katie Chenoweth is Associate Professor of French at Princeton University.Peggy Kamuf is Professor Emerita of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. Her books include Book of Addresses, which won the René Wellek Prize, and, most recently, Literature and the Remains of the Death Penalty.Elissa Marder is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Emory University and Distinguished International Faculty Fellow at the London Graduate School. Her most recent book is Dead Time: Temporal Disorders in the Wake of Modernity (Baudelaire and Flaubert). Read more