Between Interpellation and Immunization: Althusser, Balibar, Esposito

Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," Balibar's "Citizen Subject," and Esposito's Communitas may be read together as insisting on the indissoluble link between the notion of the subject as agent and the subject as the name of the subjected individual, the one who is submitted to the will of another. Each philosopher, from his own perspective, seeks to explore the paradox of the subject who is free and self-determining only to the extent that he is called upon, separated and immunized by a sovereign power. Each also offers the tools that make possible a way out of the vicious circle of subjection.