Decolonizing Damiens

Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 44 (1):29-47 (2023)
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Abstract

This paper works on the relation between spectacles and death. I present a decolonial genealogy, of the relation between sovereignty and spectacle, and specifically what coloniality does to this relation, how it shifts the very core of sovereign punishment. I demonstrate the formation of what I call “colonial sovereignty” as the emergence of a new relation between sovereignty and terror: in colonial sovereignty, terror is an inseparable element of sovereignty, formed through not the uniqueness but rather the repetition and proliferation of spectacles of death. The colonial/modern nation-state functions as a government by terror, where death becomes meaningless, and the spectacles of dead bodies outlive death.

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Ege Selin Islekel
Texas A&M University

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