The Universal As (Non‐)Particular: Agamben, Metz, And The Theology Of Victimhood

Abstract

AbstractThis study offers a new perspective on the work of Italian theorist Giorgio Agamben, arguing that his recent engagements with the Christian tradition can be productively interpreted as a kind of political theology. As a way of making this claim, I place Agamben in dialogue with German Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz, as perhaps the clearest analogue in recent political theology, examining their shared genealogical roots in Marxist philosophy and the Frankfurt School, as well their mutual interests in early‐Christian and medieval apocalyptic. Furthermore, I argue that their respective projects can mutually inform one another, and together be regarded as a corrective to certain aspects of contemporary Augustinian theory. Focusing on the question of the victim, I contend that Agamben's and Metz’s approach to “universality” can serve to illuminate and to challenge some of the more “particularistic” and exclusionary elements of the Augustinian form.