Speaker: Professor Stuart Elden (Durham University) Title: 'The Birth of Territory'
Venue/Time: Friday March 11 from 1-2pm in the Law School Seminar Room This paper provides a brief overview of a longer project tracing the emergence of territory in Western political thought. It suggests that territory is far more complicated than modern scholarship would have us believe, and should be interrogated as word, concept and practice. The argument is made that territory needs to be understood not simply as a political-economic or political-strategic relation, but also as a political-legal and political-calculative category that is dependent on the existence of a range of techniques. Three key moments are then analyzed: the translation of Greek political thought into Latin and its use by temporal power theorists in their struggles with the Papacy; the rediscovery of Roman law and its application in fourteenth century debates in Italy; and German disputes about the relative standing of the constituent parts of the Holy Roman Empire. The last, which will be treated in most detail, can be found especially in the writings of Andreas Knichen, Johannes Althusius and Gottfried Leibniz. These are key elements in tracing the birth of territory. Speaker: Dr Dimitris Vardoulakis (UWS) Title: 'Sovereignty and Its Other' Venue/Time: Monday 4 April from 1-2pm in the Law School Seminar Room Philosophy approaches the question of sovereignty from two seemingly incompatible perspectives. According to a first approach, it is possible to distinguish types of sovereignty that exemplify different practices of power. For instance, Foucault, the most prominent philosopher associated with this approach, is concerned with distinguishing classical, disciplinary and biopolitical sovereignties. Similar distinctions are adopted by the majority of political theorists. According to the second approach, there is a consistent logic of sovereignty that runs through the centuries. For instance, Derrida refers to this logic as "ipseity" in Rogues, and Giorgio Agamben stresses that it the separation of the political life from bare life that determines sovereignty from antiquity to biopolitics. Departing from Walter Benjamin's observation at the beginning of "Towards a Critique of Violence" that the relation of law and justice is as a means to end relation, I will argue that the two approaches to sovereignty outlined above are not incompatible. On the contrary, it is possible to highlight historical and qualitative peculiarities by assuming that there such a "logic" of sovereignty that relies on a means and ends relation. This logic operates by repressing it other - that which it cannot assimilate. I will support this argument with recourse to various examples, such as the discomfort exhibited by George Bush being told about the terrorist attacks in New York on the morning of September 11, 2001 while he was promoting literacy at Brooker Elementary. I will argue that the other of sovereignty is democracy. Dr Ben Golder * Lecturer * Faculty of Law * The University of New South Wales * UNSW Sydney NSW 2052, Australia * Phone: +61 (2) 9385 1843 * Fax: +61 (2) 9385 1175 * Website: http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/staff/GolderB/ * Some of my papers can be accessed at: http://ssrn.com/author=1207959 [cid:[email protected]] This email and any attachment(s) transmitted with it are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) and may contain information that is confidential or subject to legal privilege. If you receive this email in error, please disregard the contents of the email and attachment(s), delete them and notify the sender immediately. Please note that any copying, distribution or use of this email is prohibited. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the view of The University of New South Wales. Before opening any attachments, please check for viruses. UNSW ABN 57 195 873 179. CRICOS Provider No: 00098G. P Please consider the environment before printing my email.
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