The God Who Deconstructs Himself: Sovereignty and Subjectivity Between Freud, Bataille, and Derrida

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The God Who Deconstructs Himself Series Board James Bernauer Drucilla Cornell Thomas R. Flynn Kevin Hart Richard Kearney Jean-Luc Marion Adriaan Peperzak Thomas Sheehan Hent de Vries Merold Westphal Michael Zimmerman John D. Caputo, series editor PERSPECTIVES IN CO N T I N E N TA L P H I L O S O P H Y N I C K M A N S F I E L D The God Who Deconstructs Himself Sovereignty and Subjectivity Between Freud, Bataille, and Derrida FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS New York 2010 Copyright 䉷 2010 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Part of Chapter 4 originally appeared as ‘‘Sovereignty as Its Own Question: Derrida’s Rogues’’ in Contemporary Political Theory 7, no. 4 (November 2008): 361–75. Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mansfield, Nick. The God who deconstructs himself : sovereignty and subjectivity between Freud, Bataille, and Derrida / Nick Mansfield. p. cm.— (Perspectives in Continental philosophy) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-8232-3241-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8232-3242-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8232-3243-7 (ebook : alk. paper) 1. Derrida, Jacques. Voyous. 2. Freud, Sigmund, 1856–1939. 3. Bataille, Georges, 1897–1962. 4. Sovereignty. 5. Legitimacy of governments. I. Title. JC497.D475M36 2010 320.1—dc22 2010011757 Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 First edition For my parents, who keep faith ...