Witchcraft, Statecraft, Mancraft: On the Demonological Foundations of Sovereignty
Questions of sovereignty remain central to political theology, yet the role played by demonology in sovereignty’s construction has yet to be closely examined. This article addresses this omission by exploring the relation between the phantasmatic figures of the “sovereign” and the “witch” in the wor...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
[2020]
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In: |
Political theology
Year: 2020, Volume: 21, Issue: 6, Pages: 530-549 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Bodin, Jean 1529-1596
/ Sovereignty
/ Witchcraft
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RelBib Classification: | AZ New religious movements KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history ZC Politics in general |
Further subjects: | B
Sovereignty
B Witchcraft B gender and queer theory B political demonology B Jean Bodin |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | Questions of sovereignty remain central to political theology, yet the role played by demonology in sovereignty’s construction has yet to be closely examined. This article addresses this omission by exploring the relation between the phantasmatic figures of the “sovereign” and the “witch” in the work of Jean Bodin (1530-96). Early modern concepts of “witchcraft” and its prosecution have a constitutive relation to (theo)political sovereignty, modern gender relations, and the birth of the nation-state. Reading Bodin’s work on witchcraft alongside those on sovereignty, tolerance, and the household, I argue that the demonological witch forms a self-consolidating other at the foundation of modern constructions of sovereignty, tolerance, and the (cishetero)normative family - an excess or absence that reinforces and destabilizes gendered, sexual, political, juridical, and religious hierarchies that continue to influence the present. In doing so, I demonstrate that sovereignty rests on a demonological foundation. |
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ISSN: | 1743-1719 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2020.1759278 |