The Unsacrificeable Subject?

WHO DESERVES TO DIE?, p. 131, Austin Sarat & Karl Shoemaker, eds., University of Massachusetts Press, 2011

Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2012-033

12 Pages Posted: 8 Oct 2011 Last revised: 11 Dec 2012

Date Written: 2011

Abstract

Formalized, legalized and ritualized killing by political and religious authorities has been central to the maintenance, transformation and regeneration of a vast range of societies. Whether such killing or destruction involved human beings, other animals, or vegetable life, the action very often took the form of a sacrifice to sovereign powers. Sacrifice has thus often been understood as a form of mediation between sovereign and subject. In turn, the rejection of sacrificial action is at the heart of many conceptions of political modernity (for instance those of Rene Girard and Giorgio Agamben). Exploring the nature of the ‘executable subject,’ this Chapter asks whether the killing that takes place as a result of the imposition of the death penalty can be thought of as sacrificial, homicidal, or neither. It argues that sacrifice and the death penalty are in a complicated relation to one another — sacrifice emerges as the unauthorized narrative of some executions, a narrative that the state often struggles to contain. In sum, the rejection and containment of sacrifice plays an important role in the construction of the executable subject.

Keywords: death penalty, sacrifice, human sacrifice, purification, ritual, anthropology of law

Suggested Citation

Taussig-Rubbo, Mateo, The Unsacrificeable Subject? (2011). WHO DESERVES TO DIE?, p. 131, Austin Sarat & Karl Shoemaker, eds., University of Massachusetts Press, 2011, Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2012-033, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1940549

Mateo Taussig-Rubbo (Contact Author)

SUNY Buffalo Law School ( email )

School of Law
425 O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-1100
United States
716 645-5992 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.buffalo.edu

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