The Politics of Nothing: On Sovereignty

Contributors to this book question what sovereignty looks like when it is de-ontologised, when the nothingness at the heart of claims to sovereignty is unmasked and laid bare. Drawing on critical thinkers in political theology, such as Schmitt, Agamben, Nancy, Blanchot, Paulhan, The Politics of Nothing asks what happens to the political when considered in the frame of the productive potential of the nothing? Their answers are framed in terms of the deep intellectual histories at our disposal for considering these fundamental questions, carving out trajectories inspired by Peter Lombard, Shakespeare or Spinoza, for example. This book offers a series of sensitive and creative reflections that suggests the possibilities offered by thinking through sovereignty via the frame of nihilism. This book was originally published as a special issue of Culture, Theory and Critique.