Binding Violence

Binding Violenceexposes the relation between literary imagination, autonomous politics, and violence through the close analysis of literary textsin particular Sophocles'Antigone, D. A. F. de Sade's120 Days of Sodom, and Vargas Llosa'sThe Feast of the Goatthat speak to a blind spot in democratic theory, namely, how we decide democratically on the borders of our political communities. These works bear the imprint of the anxieties of democracy concerning its otherviolenceespecially when the question of a redefinition of membership is at stake. The book shares the philosophical interest in rethinking politics that has recently surfaced at the crossroads of literary criticism, philosophy, critical theory, and psychoanalysis. Fradinger takes seriously the responsibility to think through and give names to the political uses of violence and to provoke useful reflection on the problem of violence as it relates to politics and on literature as it relates to its times.

Moira Fradinger is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale University.