On the Persistence of the Human: Body, Soul, and Migrations of Sovereignty

Recently, scholars have argued that to ask questions concerning what it may mean to be human is, paradoxically, to engage in an inquiry that is at best, meaningless and at worst, moraline, distracting thinkers from the pursuit of more consequential questions. I argue that the idea of the human remains central to any comprehension of sovereign power. To do so, I present a critical analysis of Erik Santner's work on what he calls "the flesh." Alternatively, I suggest that there are migrations of sovereignty more robust than the masculinist rendering of the flesh that he presents.