Deconstructing Death: Derrida and the Scene of Execution

New Formations - ISSN 0950-2378
Volume 2016 Number 89-90

Deconstructing Death: Derrida and the Scene of Execution
Elizabeth Rottenberg pages -
DOI: 10.3898/NEWF:89/90.02.2016

Abstract

This paper focuses on the scene of execution, on the essentially theatrical and spectacular nature of the death penalty. It argues that this scene involves not a literal seeing but a virtual or phantasmatic seeing, i.e. a specific kind of visibility that has important consequences for thinking the death penalty (and its future). It highlights two moments of Derrida’s reading of the death penalty in The Death Penalty I and II: the first is Derrida’s insistence on the virtualization of the spectacle; the second is Derrida’s appeal, in the penultimate session of The Death Penalty I, to the explicitly phantasmatic dimension of the death penalty. As the paper tries to show, there is no escaping the scene of execution because there is no escaping the dream of execution; one does not simply put an end to a phantasmatic truth. But if this ‘ready-made phantasy’ is the case, if there is something invincible about the dream of execution, then what would it mean, this paper asks, to think beyond the death penalty?

SORRY - you are not registered as being permitted online access to the full text of this article

You have the following options:

  1. If you are viewing this via an institution or academic library you can ask that your institution takes out a Subscription to this journal.
  2. If you already have a Personal Subscription please login below


    Forgotten your username / password? Click here to locate

  3. Purchase an annual Personal Subscription
    PRINT + DIGITAL personal subscription (£45 / year)
    DIGITAL personal subscription (£30 / year)
    A Personal Subscription provides immediate access not only to the single article you are seeking, but also to all past and future articles in this journal up to the expiry of your annual (calendar year) subscription.
  4. Purchase immediate access to this single article (UK£7.00) - Buy article Coming Soon

To cite this article
Elizabeth Rottenberg (2016) Deconstructing Death: Derrida and the Scene of Execution, New Formations, 2016(89-90 ), -. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF:89/90.02.2016

Share this