On the Mechanics of Profanation: Subjectivity and Zionist Divides

In Giorgio Agamben’s call to profane the sacred in the most desacralized forms, the specific mechanics through which the sacred and the profane connect and become indistinctive remains undertheorized. This article, then, aims at adding a further layer of practical articulation to Agamben’s notion of profanation as it was elaborated in his book Profanations. The article does so by discussing the ways Zionist subjectivities and divides are interconnected and expressed in Israeli society. To be practiced as a process of becoming, profanation, I argue, needs to be understood as a process of cultural transformation by which new forms of subjectivity are offered.