Sacrosanctity
This term has been unusually busy, and I haven't been able to update this blog as often as I'd like. But I can at least make a quick update: I was commissioned by Harvard University Press to write a new book on sovereignty. One aspect of this theme, which has been endlessly fascinating for me up to this point in my academic career, has been the theological aspect of it, how sovereignty confers an immunizing power on those who hold and wield it. I've wanted to explore some of the theological aspects of sovereign immunity for some time, but wild claims of immunity - even 'absolute immunity' - have made this project almost imperative for me. This has sometimes been described in terms of 'sacrosanctity,' the ancient roots of which can be traced in the lex sacrata (which Giorgio Agamben made famous for modern readers in Homo Sacer ) and the tribunician potestas sacrosancta of the Roman plebeian tribunes. One of the most concrete places where this feature
