This course is meeting in HB100 Komoda Room, Heyman Center.
In an interview with Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Derrida details the lack of a philosophical justification for abolitionism. Rather, its proponents have made the case largely through extra-philosophical- i.e., largely literary or politico-activist modes. Our seminar will examine the death penalty as it is presented in three distinct genres: philosophy, literature and film. After a brief consideration of each genre, we turn to the justification for the death penalty in a tradition of western political thought linking it to sovereignty as well as to the construction of a “public enemy.” We shift our focus to the distinctive visuality of the death penalty-how scenes of execution are staged and witnessed. But we also investigate how these genres are mutually implicated in certain figures such as Albert Camus. We conclude with transnational comparisons of the death penalty’s (and abolitionism”s) representation in seemingly disparate works of localized fiction (the “killing states” of the American south and international cinema). Throughout the course we investigate the performance of the death penalty in relation to questions of race, gender, class and national imaginaries.
