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PREPARATION 4
Assignment due in class on March 10* from members of Group 4 *Since part of the value of the text preparation assignment is that it will prepare you to be an active participant in tutorial and 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 or TA to make alternate arrangements. Please read: Carl Schmitt, Political Theology. Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (1922): chaps. 1 and 3 [purchase book / make personal copy from book on reserve] and address the following two questions in in 3-4 well-written paragraphs (spanning 2-3 pages), with detailed reference to the text. Since this is your first reading of Political Theology, and since we have not yet discussed the book in class, you are not being asked to supply definitive answers but preliminary, thoughtful responses based on attentive reading. 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?
In preparing this assignment, please follow the citation guidelines in
Your assignment should be printed double-spaced and with one-inch margins, using a 10-12-point font. Please number and staple the pages you hand in.
Please keep a copy of your assignment to refer to in our class discussion.
posted/distributed March 3, 2009