In recent years, political theorists have begun to explore the sacrificial dimensions of liberali... more In recent years, political theorists have begun to explore the sacrificial dimensions of liberalism and neoliberalism in the global North. Little of this work, however, grapples with the ways settler colonialism informs contemporary political sacrifice or conceptions of the sacrificial. This paper traces a genealogy of contemporary political sacrifice through the archive of early British colonialism in North America. When theorists ignore this archive, they do more than render colonization mute: they also fail to apprehend what I term political sacrifice’s differential function—the mechanism by which sacrifice’s burdens fall on subordinated groups while its benefits accrue to the socially, politically, and economically powerful. Methodologically, the paper works across disciplines, establishing links between critical analyses of settler colonialism and studies in political theology. If a theological notion of sacrifice underpins modern notions of citizenship, and settler colonizatio...
Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biop... more Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that Foucault developed his analysis of biopolitics in and through his historical investigation of neoliberalism. This paper follows Foucault in tracing the historical emergence of neoliberalism from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth century, attending to the continuities, as well as the radical discontinuities between these political forms. Particular attention is given to the history of neoliberalism in its German and American variants, and links are traced between neoliberal strategies of governance and biopolitical methods of population control. Because neoliberalism characterizes the governmental and economic reason and practice of late modernity, Foucault's analysis prepares us to understand and engage the social, political, and economic conjunctures reverberating throughout the world today.
Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biop... more Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that Foucault developed his analysis of biopolitics in and through his historical investigation of neoliberalism. This paper follows Foucault in tracing the historical emergence of neoliberalism from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth century, attending to the continuities, as well as the radical discontinuities between these political forms. Particular attention is given to the history of neoliberalism in its German and American variants, and links are traced between neoliberal strategies of governance and biopolitical methods of population control. Because neoliberalism characterizes the governmental and economic reason and practice of late modernity, Foucault's analysis prepares us to understand and engage the social, political, and economic conjunctures reverberating throughout the world today.
This paper examines Michel Foucault’s political philosophy, arguing that concepts developed by Fo... more This paper examines Michel Foucault’s political philosophy, arguing that concepts developed by Foucault in the mid-1970s can continue to inform critical political analysis. Offering a detailed reconstruction of Foucault’s lectures and key published works, the paper argues for an overall coherence in Foucault’s vision of governmental power. Then, this vision is applied to the system of immigrant detention and policing at the U.S.-Mexico border. Here it is shown that concepts such as discipline, security, bio-power, and governmentality shed considerable light on the racialized regime of capture and enclosure that preponderates in the borderlands. On the other hand, the paper encourages a movement beyond mere scholarly inquiry, acknowledging that regimes of organized terror demand concrete resistance. To that end, the paper concludes by suggesting some ways that Foucault’s critical apprehension of “governmentality” can inform radical praxis as well as scholarship.
Franz Kafka’s short story “In the Penal Colony” has been widely, even exhaustively studied. Howev... more Franz Kafka’s short story “In the Penal Colony” has been widely, even exhaustively studied. However, there is a dearth of analysis which stresses the centrality of the colony as a site, and race as a structure, in this text in a sustained and appropriately nuanced manner. Kafka’s work has a tendency to be read under the sign of the universal, as representing ubiquitous systems of domination and alienation which may even be accorded metaphysical significance. This paper argues that “In the Penal Colony,” on the contrary, illustrates specific political processes and relations which belong to colonial and racialized orders of power. Reading Kafka’s text alongside theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe, and Saidiya Hartman, this paper offers an inroad towards the jarring energy of the penal colony, which remains ill-defined when the structures of colonialism and the category of race are not foregrounded.
American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, 2021
Tsitsi Dangarembga’s landmark novel, Nervous Conditions, offers a complex interrogation of intrac... more Tsitsi Dangarembga’s landmark novel, Nervous Conditions, offers a complex interrogation of intracommunity social dynamics in 1960s colonized Rhodesia. Specifically, Dangarembga’s text interrogates social relations surrounding food and nutrition in a racist and colonized society, charting the ways gender and class, as well as race, inflect food’s social and psychological significations. Many commentators have analyzed food’s role in the text, paying special attention to the spaces in which food is consumed and the gendered spectacle of the family meal. This paper shifts the focus away from consumption and towards production, offering a novel reading that centers spaces of gendered reproductive labor. Reading Nervous Conditions alongside Frantz Fanon’s celebrated analysis of the colonized city, the paper argues that spaces of gendered reproductive labor emerge as “micro-colonies” in Dangarembga’s text, or carceral environments bounded by the convergence of colonial and patriarchal forces. Yet in the teeth of this convergence, sites of gendered labor also assert themselves as fecund spaces of solidarity and creative self-making. Following Saidiya Hartman’s work on the infrapolitics of subaltern groups, this paper argues that a “politics of a lower frequency” inscribes itself in acts of autonomous self-definition, joy, sensuality and intimacy shared by Dangarembga’s female characters. The paper reads Nervous Condition as a political literature in a minor key, or a “minor literature” that gives precedence to the diffuse politics of the quotidian. As an exemplar of such a literature, Nervous Conditions deftly illustrates how micro-colonial spaces breed their own, “minor” registers of solidarity—and their own “minor” scales of resistance.
In recent years, political theorists have begun to explore the sacrificial dimensions of liberali... more In recent years, political theorists have begun to explore the sacrificial dimensions of liberalism and neoliberalism in the global North. Little of this work, however, grapples with the ways settler colonialism informs contemporary political sacrifice or conceptions of the sacrificial. This paper traces a genealogy of contemporary political sacrifice through the archive of early British colonialism in North America. When theorists ignore this archive, they do more than render colonization mute: they also fail to apprehend what I term political sacrifice’s differential function—the mechanism by which sacrifice’s burdens fall on subordinated groups while its benefits accrue to the socially, politically, and economically powerful. Methodologically, the paper works across disciplines, establishing links between critical analyses of settler colonialism and studies in political theology. If a theological notion of sacrifice underpins modern notions of citizenship, and settler colonizatio...
Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biop... more Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that Foucault developed his analysis of biopolitics in and through his historical investigation of neoliberalism. This paper follows Foucault in tracing the historical emergence of neoliberalism from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth century, attending to the continuities, as well as the radical discontinuities between these political forms. Particular attention is given to the history of neoliberalism in its German and American variants, and links are traced between neoliberal strategies of governance and biopolitical methods of population control. Because neoliberalism characterizes the governmental and economic reason and practice of late modernity, Foucault's analysis prepares us to understand and engage the social, political, and economic conjunctures reverberating throughout the world today.
Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biop... more Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that Foucault developed his analysis of biopolitics in and through his historical investigation of neoliberalism. This paper follows Foucault in tracing the historical emergence of neoliberalism from the classical liberalism of the eighteenth century, attending to the continuities, as well as the radical discontinuities between these political forms. Particular attention is given to the history of neoliberalism in its German and American variants, and links are traced between neoliberal strategies of governance and biopolitical methods of population control. Because neoliberalism characterizes the governmental and economic reason and practice of late modernity, Foucault's analysis prepares us to understand and engage the social, political, and economic conjunctures reverberating throughout the world today.
This paper examines Michel Foucault’s political philosophy, arguing that concepts developed by Fo... more This paper examines Michel Foucault’s political philosophy, arguing that concepts developed by Foucault in the mid-1970s can continue to inform critical political analysis. Offering a detailed reconstruction of Foucault’s lectures and key published works, the paper argues for an overall coherence in Foucault’s vision of governmental power. Then, this vision is applied to the system of immigrant detention and policing at the U.S.-Mexico border. Here it is shown that concepts such as discipline, security, bio-power, and governmentality shed considerable light on the racialized regime of capture and enclosure that preponderates in the borderlands. On the other hand, the paper encourages a movement beyond mere scholarly inquiry, acknowledging that regimes of organized terror demand concrete resistance. To that end, the paper concludes by suggesting some ways that Foucault’s critical apprehension of “governmentality” can inform radical praxis as well as scholarship.
Franz Kafka’s short story “In the Penal Colony” has been widely, even exhaustively studied. Howev... more Franz Kafka’s short story “In the Penal Colony” has been widely, even exhaustively studied. However, there is a dearth of analysis which stresses the centrality of the colony as a site, and race as a structure, in this text in a sustained and appropriately nuanced manner. Kafka’s work has a tendency to be read under the sign of the universal, as representing ubiquitous systems of domination and alienation which may even be accorded metaphysical significance. This paper argues that “In the Penal Colony,” on the contrary, illustrates specific political processes and relations which belong to colonial and racialized orders of power. Reading Kafka’s text alongside theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe, and Saidiya Hartman, this paper offers an inroad towards the jarring energy of the penal colony, which remains ill-defined when the structures of colonialism and the category of race are not foregrounded.
American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, 2021
Tsitsi Dangarembga’s landmark novel, Nervous Conditions, offers a complex interrogation of intrac... more Tsitsi Dangarembga’s landmark novel, Nervous Conditions, offers a complex interrogation of intracommunity social dynamics in 1960s colonized Rhodesia. Specifically, Dangarembga’s text interrogates social relations surrounding food and nutrition in a racist and colonized society, charting the ways gender and class, as well as race, inflect food’s social and psychological significations. Many commentators have analyzed food’s role in the text, paying special attention to the spaces in which food is consumed and the gendered spectacle of the family meal. This paper shifts the focus away from consumption and towards production, offering a novel reading that centers spaces of gendered reproductive labor. Reading Nervous Conditions alongside Frantz Fanon’s celebrated analysis of the colonized city, the paper argues that spaces of gendered reproductive labor emerge as “micro-colonies” in Dangarembga’s text, or carceral environments bounded by the convergence of colonial and patriarchal forces. Yet in the teeth of this convergence, sites of gendered labor also assert themselves as fecund spaces of solidarity and creative self-making. Following Saidiya Hartman’s work on the infrapolitics of subaltern groups, this paper argues that a “politics of a lower frequency” inscribes itself in acts of autonomous self-definition, joy, sensuality and intimacy shared by Dangarembga’s female characters. The paper reads Nervous Condition as a political literature in a minor key, or a “minor literature” that gives precedence to the diffuse politics of the quotidian. As an exemplar of such a literature, Nervous Conditions deftly illustrates how micro-colonial spaces breed their own, “minor” registers of solidarity—and their own “minor” scales of resistance.
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