Special section on political theology

Abstract

This special section on political theology seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate on the relationship between politics and theology and, more exactly, on political theology. Nowadays, political theology may signify several things, like theology that is eminently political, or theologically laden politics, but the articles of this special section can be situated in the theoretical side of this debate—in particular, within the discursive field opened up by the publication of Carl Schmitt’s Politische Theologie in 1922 and Walter Benjamin’s Zur Kritik der Gewalt in 1921. In Germany, the publication of these texts, especially Schmitt’s Politische Theologie, launched a vivid discussion. The discussion, with authors such as Lowith, Blumenberg, and Habermas as interlocutors, has continued up to this day. The Anglo-American academic audience first became acquainted with this debate (particularly with the Benjaminian theme of the ‘‘messianic’’) in the 19700s through French poststructuralists such as Jacques Derrida, and for a second time in the beginning of 19900s when Schmitt was ‘‘rehabilitated’’ as a serious political thinker. Nowadays, the theoretical debate on political theology (both the Schmittian and the Benjaminian) has established itself as one of the central topics in political philosophy and theory worldwide (see Giorgio Agamben, Il tempo che resta. Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2000; Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: La Fondations de l’universalism. Paris: PUF, 1997; Hent de Vries & Lawrence Sullivan, Political Theologies. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006; Creston Davis, John Milbank & Slavoj Zizek, Theology and the Political. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005; Slavoj Zizek, Eric L. Santner, Kenneth Reinhard, The Neighbour: Three Inquiries in Political Theology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005; more recently see e.g. Constellations 17(2), 2010; Millenium 39(2), 2010). This special section contributes to this debate from two perspectives. On the one hand,