Organized rape has been an integral aspect of warfare for a long time even though classics on warfare have predominantly focused on theorizing ‘regular’ warfare, that is, the situations in which one army encounters another in a battle to conquer or defend a territory. Recently, however, much attention has been paid to asymmetric warfare and, accordingly, to phenomena such as guerrilla tactics, terrorism, hostage taking and a range of identity-related aspects of war such as religious fundamentalism, holy war, ethnic cleansing (...) and war rape. In fact, war rape can be taken as a perfect example of an asymmetric strategy. In war rape the soldier attacks a civilian (not a fellow combatant) and a woman (not another male soldier), and does this only indirectly with the aim of holding or taking a territory. The primary target here is to inflict trauma and through this to destroy family ties and group solidarity within the enemy camp. This article understands war rape as a fundamental way of abandoning subjects: rape is the mark of sovereignty stamped directly on the body, that is, it is essentially a bio-political strategy using (or better, abusing) the distinction between the self and the body. Through an analysis of the way rape was carried out by the predominantly paramilitary Serbian forces on Bosnian soil, this article theorizes a two-fold practice of abjection: through war rape an abject is introduced within the woman’s body (sperm or forced pregnancy), transforming her into an abject-self rejected by the family, excluded by the community and quite often also the object of a self-hate, sometimes to the point of suicide. This understanding of war rape is developed in the article through a synthesis of the literature on abandonment (Agamben, Schmitt) and abjection (Bataille, Douglas, Kristeva) and concomitantly it is argued that the penetration of the woman’s body works as a metaphor for the penetration of enemy lines. In addition it is argued that this bio-political strategy, like other forms of sovereignty, operates through the creation of an ‘inclusive exclusion’. The woman and the community in question are inscribed within the enemy realm of power as those excluded. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper addresses the ways in which the cultural, the affective and the political intersect, counter and/or feed upon one another in the context of contemporary terror. Initially, buildin...

Focusing on the film Fight Club, the article deals with how microfascism persists in the network society in spite of its public denial. Considering microfascism as a line of flight with respect to the social bond, it asks what happens to the project of subversion when power itself goes nomadic and when the idea of transgression is solicited by the new “spirit of capitalism”. It is argued that every social order has an obscene supplement that serves as the positive condition (...) of its possibility, and that increasing reflexivity today is accompanied by emerging nonsymbolic forms of authority. In this context, the article deals with the question of violence and relates this to the problematics of critique, flight and act in contemporary societies. (shrink)

The article elaborates on Arendt’s take on the religious and the political and on how they interact and merge in modernity, especially in totalitarianism. We start with framing the three different understandings of religion in Arendt: first, a classic understanding of religion, which is foreign to the logic of the political; second, a secularized political religion; and third, a weak messianism. Both the classic understanding of religion and the political religion deny human freedom in Arendt’s sense. Her transcendent alternative to (...) them both is the notion of the democratic political community: the Republic. Then we turn to Arendt’s political theology, illuminating why interrogating Nazism is central to examine the relationship between politics and religion in modernity. This is followed by a discussion of Nazism as a type of political religion. We focus here on totalitarianism, both as an idea and actual institution. We conclude with an assessment of the role of profanation in Arendt’s work and its significance vis-à-vis the contemporary ‘return of religion’ as well as totalitarian tendencies which call for new forms of voluntary servitude. (shrink)

The article discusses the figure of the collector. We start with positioning the collector in relation to a lack, emphasizing that collecting is not about aesthetic beauty, pleasure or even perfect...

Preface -- What is sociology? -- Capitalism and alienation : Marx and Weber -- Recognition and anomie : Durkheim and Honneth -- Social interaction and marginalisation: Simmel and the Chicago School -- Power and stratification : Foucault and Bourdieu -- System and differentiation : Luhmann and Habermas -- State and market : Althusser and Boltanski & Chiapello -- Uncertainty and risk : Bauman and Beck -- The reflective self : Goffman and Giddens -- Family and work : Sennett and Hochschild (...) -- Gender, body and identity : Butler and Haraway -- Factish and fetish : Latour and Zizek -- Sociology as an analytic praxis. (shrink)