The ontology of death : The philosophy of the death penalty in literature / Aaron Aquilina.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aquilina, Aaron, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Death in literature.

Ontology in literature.

Philosophy.

Psychoanalysis and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

text file

HTML/PDF

Summary:

Through examination of the death penalty in literature, Aaron Aquilina contests Heidegger's concept of 'being-towards-death' and proposes a new understanding of the political and philosophical subject. Dickens, Nabokov, Hugo, Sophocles and many others explore capital punishment in their works, from Antigone to Invitation to a Beheading. Using these varied case studies, Aquilina demonstrates how they all highlight two aspects of the experience. First, they uncover a particular state of being, or more precisely non-being, that comes with a death sentence, and, second, they reveal how this state exists beyond death row, as sovereignty and alterity are by no means confined to a prison cell. In contrast to Heidegger's being-towards-death, which individualizes the subject - only I can die my own death, supposedly - this book argues that, when condemned to death, the self and death collide, putting under erasure the category of subjectivity itself. Be it death row or not, when the supposed futurity of death is brought into the here and now, we encounter what Aquilina calls 'relational death'. Living on with death severs the subject's relation to itself, the other and political sociality as a whole, rendering the human less a named and recognizable 'being' than an anonymous 'living corpse', a human thing. In a sustained engagement with Blanchot, Levinas, Hegel, Agamben and Derrida, The Ontology of Death articulates a new theory of the subject, beyond political subjectivity defined by sovereignty and beyond the Heideggerian notion of ontological selfhood..

Contents:

Acknowledgements Introduction: Literature, Questions, Death Dead Politics Chapter 1: The Instant of My Death Chapter 2: Death Penalties Chapter 3: Missing Death Chapter 4: After Death, Anonymity Chapter 5: The Death of No One Conclusion: The Death of Me Bibliography Index .

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781350339514

1350339512

9781350339491

1350339490

9781350339507

1350339504

OCLC:

1368205958