{"product_id":"the-death-penalty-volume-i-volume-1-the-seminars-of-jacques-derrida","title":"The Death Penalty  Volume I (Volume 1) (The Seminars of Jacques Derrida)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this newest installment in Chicagos series of Jacques Derridas seminars  the renowned philosopher attempts one of his most ambitious goals: the first truly philosophical argument against the death penalty. While much has been written against the death penalty  Derrida contends that Western philosophy is massively  if not always overtly  complicit with a logic in which a sovereign state has the right to take a life. Haunted by this notion  he turns to the key places where such logic has been establishedand to the place it has been most effectively challenged: literature.  With his signature genius and patient yet dazzling readings of an impressive breadth of texts  Derrida examines everything from the Bible to Plato to Camus to Jean Genet  with special attention to Kant and postWorld War II juridical texts  to draw the landscape of death penalty discourses. Keeping clearly in view the death rows and execution chambers of the United States  he shows how arguments surrounding cruel and unusual punishment depend on what he calls an anesthesial logic  which has also driven the development of death penalty technology from the French guillotine to lethal injection. Confronting a demand for philosophical rigor  he pursues provocative analyses of the shortcomings of abolitionist discourse. Above all  he argues that the death penalty and its attendant technologies are products of a desire to put an end to one of the most fundamental qualities of our finite existence: the radical uncertainty of when we will die.  Arriving at a critical juncture in historyespecially in the United States  one of the last Christian-inspired democracies to resist abolitionThe Death Penalty is both a timely response to an important ethical debate and a timeless addition to Derridas esteemed body of work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946837307445,"sku":"ByrdShop_0226144321","price":63.96,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780226144320.jpg?v=1769968462","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-death-penalty-volume-i-volume-1-the-seminars-of-jacques-derrida","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}