Assignment due in class on November 9* from some students

*Since part of the value of the text summary assignment is that it will prepare you to be an active participant in class, it may only be submitted in class on the day it is due.  If you have to miss that day's class, please contact the instructor to make alternate arrangements.

Please (re-)read Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, chapters 1 and 3, and address the following two questions in well-written paragraphs (spanning approximately 3 pages). Since this is your first reading of this text, and since we have not yet discussed it in class, you are not being asked to supply definitive answers but preliminary, thoughtful responses based on close attention to the text. Your answers may also include 1-2 important questions raised by your reading for further discussion. 

1. (on chapter 1)
Schmitt writes that when the state faces an "emergency" situation or a state of "exception," "the decision frees itself from all normative ties and becomes in the true sense absolute" (12).  Explain what he means by this.

2. (on chapter 3)
According to Schmitt, how is the rejection of the "exception" in political or legal theory analogous to the theological rejection of the miracle?

As in your Text Summaries, please follow the guidelines in: Gordon Harvey, Writing with Sources, pp. 1-3, 6, 10-19, 22-23, 50-51 [purchase book / selection in Coursepack 1 / book on reserve]