%0 Journal Article
%T Sovereignty without Mastery
%A Patrick McLane
%J Societies
%D 2013
%I MDPI AG
%R 10.3390/soc3010001
%X In The Beast and the Sovereign v.1, Derrida argues that classical sovereignty is linked to the performative act of declaring oneself master. Thus, each sovereign asserts a distinction between the masterful self and the mastered other. Derrida contends that the sovereign distinction between self and other maps onto a distinction between sovereign autonomy and a mechanical determination said to characterize others of all kinds. This gives rise to a differentiated binary between responsibility, capacity and restraint on the one side against reaction, instinct and danger on the other, which, Derrida suggests, operates across traditional separations, such as man/animal, man/machine, mind/body and, of course, sovereign and beast. This paper argues that Derrida¡¯s reading of Paul Celan and Georges Bataille may be understood as a pursuit of an alternative sovereignty. This alternative sovereignty would be without mastery and its binaries. I suggest that Derrida finds such an alternative sovereignty in the ¡°majesty¡± of poetry, which, in his own poetic gesture, allows him to upset traditional distinctions.
%K sovereignty
%K poetry
%K testimony
%K ¡®The Animal¡¯
%K Derrida
%K Bataille
%K Celan
%U http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/3/1/1