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Diego Rossello

Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Facultad de Artes Liberales, Departamento de Filosofía, Faculty Member

Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Departamento de Filosof'ía, Faculty Member

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I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Liberal Arts, University Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago, Chile. I obtained my Ph.D. in Political Science (specialization in political philosophy) at Northwestern University under Bonnie Honig. I am interested in political philosophy, environmental humanities, political theology, and Latin American Political Thought. I have been a Fellow of the Paris Program in Critical Theory (Northwestern University), directed by Samuel Weber; a Junior Scholar at the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop (Columbia University), and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton. Former editor of Revista de Ciencia Política (2012-2016) and co-editor of Economía y Política (2018-2025), my work has been published in journals such as Revista de Filosofía, Ideas y Valores, Society and Animals, Philosophy Today, New Literary History, Political Theology, Social Compass, Hobbes Studies, MLN, Philosophy and Global Affairs, Contemporary Political Theory, and Political Theory, among others.

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Papers by Diego Rossello

Animal Magnetism: Notes for an Ecocritical Political Philosophy in the Anthropocene (Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica)

Rivista di Filosofia Politica, 2025

The paper explores animal magnetism as a framework for rethinking ecocritical political philosoph... more The paper explores animal magnetism as a framework for rethinking ecocritical political philosophy in the Anthropocene. The movement of ideas known as animal magnetism emerged in the years leading up to the French Revolution, when Mesmerism-the theory of vital fluids proposed by Franz Anton Mesmer-gained significant popularity among revolutionaries. Its influence also extended to the intellectual climate that contributed to the Haitian Revolution. Both then and now, the philosophico-political interest in animal magnetism lies in its affinity with radical democracy. However, animal magnetism is also characterized by its egalitarianism-even across species-as well as by an enchanted conception of the world attuned to flows of sympathy, the interconnection between living beings, and the possibility of a harmonious relationship with nature.

New Aspects of Hobbes: Matter and Energy Remarks on Samantha Frost's Lessons from a Materialist Thinker (Hobbes Studies)

Hobbes Studies , 2024

The 15 th anniversary, in 2023, of Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on E... more The 15 th anniversary, in 2023, of Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics offers an opportunity to revisit one of the most original contributions to Hobbes scholarship in the last few decades. The book's originality resides not only in recuperating Hobbes's materialist metaphysics for contemporary ethics and politics, but in making Hobbes's take on matter inform novel conceptual approaches to social and non-social reality, such as new materialism-a philosophical school that conceives matter as vibrant and agentic, rather than inert.

Imagining Ecopolis: Visions of Ecofeminist Political Theology and Ecocriticism in Latin America (Social Compass)

by Diego Rossello and Ely Orrego Torres

Social Compass, 2024

Although often overlooked by mainstream accounts of political theology and ecocriticism in the Gl... more Although often overlooked by mainstream accounts of political theology and ecocriticism in the Global North, powerful visions of an ecopolis have been emerging in Latin America. In this article, we review the status of mainstream approaches to notions such as subject, citizen, and personal dignity and put them in a critical dialogue with Latin American Ecofeminist Political Theologies (LAEPT). We argue that those notions, often conceived from a Western and anthropocentric perspective, show their limits when interrogated from the perspective of LAEPT. Accordingly, we suggest that their main contribution lies not only in their critique of the Western paradigm but also in advancing alternative conceptions of an ecologically conscious political community that considers the Earth as sacred, and nature as a reflection of the divine. We conclude that such conceptions can also be seen at work in the rights of nature enshrined in the so-called new Latin American Constitutionalism.

The Task of Thanking: Thanking as Thinking with Samuel Weber -a note from Latin America (MLN-Modern Language Notes)

MLN - Modern Language Notes, 2024

The essay pays homage to Samuel Weber's work through a reflection on thanking and (as) thinking. ... more The essay pays homage to Samuel Weber's work through a reflection on thanking and (as) thinking. It is argued that Weber's critique of thinking modeled after the skill of the archer, as hitting the mark and making the point can be extended to a problematization of thanking. Thus, by taking the form of a digressive, off point, "thank you note" from Latin America, the essay draws on the almost homonymy between thinking and thanking both in English and in German (Denken-Danken), to reflect upon what it means to thank and be thankful, in connection to what it means to think and be thoughtful. In addition to discussing Weber's work, the essay draws on Nietzsche's argument on thankfulness as being intrinsically linked to indebtedness and ressentiment; on Heidegger's idea of thinking as thanking, and as a gift that does not need to be repaid; as well as on Derrida's reflections on the economy of sacrifice. The result is not only a reflection on how to thank thinking, and on how to think thanking, but also an exploration of the ability to thank from outside the Global North.

Singularidad antropocénica: historia, repetición, extinción (En prensa en Papel Máquina, Dossier sobre Samuel Weber)

Papel Máquina, 2024

El presente trabajo explora el vínculo posible entre la época geológica denominada Antropoceno y ... more El presente trabajo explora el vínculo posible entre la época geológica denominada Antropoceno y formas alternativas de pensar la historia. Sugerimos que este vínculo merece ser pensado porque, como es sabido, el Antropoceno desdibuja la distinción clásica entre historia humana e historia natural y, al hacerlo, pone presión sobre uno de los dualismos fundantes de la modernidad filosófica y política. La indistinción mencionada amenaza también con afectar a distinciones cercanas y relacionadas, como la que opone libertad a necesidad; las ciencias del espíritu a las naturales y el mundo al planeta, entre otras. Basándonos en el trabajo de Samuel Weber, en lo que sigue exploramos formas alternativas de conceptualizar la historia a través de dos nociones discutidas por el autor estadounidense: singularidad y repetición. En particular, echamos mano a estas nociones tal y como son desarrolladas por Weber para interrogar la idea de una posible sexta extinción de la vida sobre la Tierra, evento que suele ser asociado al advenimiento del Antropoceno.

Detail Radicals: Gothic Feminism, Macho Populism, and the Spectral Body of the Queen (Political Theology)

Political Theology, 2022

Bonnie Honig's book, Shell-Shocked: Feminist Criticism After Trump (2021), is a sharp, urgent, an... more Bonnie Honig's book, Shell-Shocked: Feminist Criticism After Trump (2021), is a sharp, urgent, and sophisticated critique of Trumpism's many facets. But it is not any kind of critique: it is a feminist critique of Trumpism's policies, gestures, affects, and legacies. Suggestive in Honig's book is the proposal of a specific type of intense sensorial disposition that feminist criticism can work with and through; a kind of alternative epistemology of awareness where psychic stability and a sense of reality depend upon a heightened attention to detail. Attention to detail links the stories of public writing reunited and reworked in the book. 1 Following the example of Penelope in Homer's Odyssey, who promises to choose a "suitor" after finishing a shroud but gains time by weaving during the day and unweaving at night, Honig finds a loose thread in the fabric of the political and pulls, until the fabric comes undone. To undo the fabric of Trump's macho populism, Honig returns to the female gothic perspective, a recurring motif in her work. In what follows, I would like to address the female gothic perspective in Shell-Shocked by focusing on three main themes: 1) the female gothic's peculiar attentiveness to detail that sees things others cannot see, including ghosts 2) the link between the gothic genre, as such, political 1 From Christine Blasey Ford's fixation with a second door while renovating her house, to law scholar Pamela Karlan, who notices that Trump names his son after a nobility title; and from Joyce Byers, the heroine in Stranger Things played by Winona Ryder, who stares transfixed at a series of lights in her house, to Paula, the main character in the 1944 movie Gaslight, who does exactly the same when trying to figure out what is wrong with her (husband). To these women we should add another key transfixed spectator: Mary Anne MacLeod, Donald Trump's mother, watching the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on TV, much to the annoyance of her husband.

"Remarks on Animal Labour" en Symposium on Animal Labour (Politics and Animals)

Politics and Animals, 2022

On April 15, 2021, a roundtable occurred at the annual conference of the Midwestern Political Sci... more On April 15, 2021, a roundtable occurred at the annual conference of the Midwestern Political Science Association to discuss Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?, edited by Charlotte Blattner, Kendra Coulter, and Will Kymlicka, and published by Oxford University Press in February 2020. The following symposium contains expanded versions of the papers presented at the MPSA conference. Jishnu Guha-Majumdar introduces the edited volume and the contributions of the respondents in the symposium. Diego Rossello then discusses the book's framing as "interspecies justice" and its definition of labor. Angie Pepper reflects on whether it is possible for animals to justly consent to labor occupations. Guha-Majumdar examines how the afterlives of transatlantic slavery shape the terms of debates over animal labour. Peter Niesen considers questions about the sequencing and types of labor rights for animals used in agriculture. Finally, Blattner and Kymlicka offer a reply.

The Animal Condition in the Human Condition: Rethinking Arendt's Political Action Beyond the Human Species (Contemporary Political Theory)

Contemporary Political Theory

This paper argues that Arendt's conception of non-human animal appearance can be put into a produ... more This paper argues that Arendt's conception of non-human animal appearance can be put into a productive dialogue with recent developments in critical animal studies (CAS) and animal rights theory (ART), especially with the so-called political turn in ART, where notions such as (dependent) agency, zoopolis, and animal agora play an important role. Critically examining the animal condition in Arendt's account of the human condition, and focusing on the animal condition in Arendt's work means exploring her potential contribution to political theory in a world where non-human-animals and nature are seen as making claims of entry into the political community. Can Arendt's work help us rethink the boundaries of the political community beyond the human species? And, more specifically, how might her conceptual resources be used to think the political agency of non-human animals?

¿Hacia el Tanatoceno? Dignidad humana, aunque el mundo perezca (Mutatis Mutandis: Revista Internacional de Filosofía)

El presente trabajo discute la relación entre el Antropoceno y una determinada manera de entender... more El presente trabajo discute la relación entre el Antropoceno y una determinada manera de entender la dignidad del ser humano. El Antropoceno es una nuevaépoca en la escala geológica en la cual los seres humanos adquieren un rol protagónico. Este rol se evidencia en la acidificación creciente de los océanos, los niveles de dióxido de carbono en la atmósfera, la reducción de la biodiversidad y los registros estratigráficos en cuerpos de roca terrestre. Tomados en conjunto, estos elementos muestran el impacto que la especie humana esta teniendo sobre el sistema de la tierra. En este contexto, defensores recientes de la dignidad humana en elámbito de la filosofía argumentan que los seres humanos ocupan el estatus más elevado entre las especies de la Tierra y que de ello se seguiría una responsabilidad especial: la de ponerse al servicio de la naturaleza. Sin embargo, críticos de esta postura sostienen que la dignidad humana entendida como estatus elevado sobre las demás especies no puede sino derivar en el excepcionalismo o supremacismo humano. En acuerdo parcial con las críticas a este modo de pensar la dignidad humana, la contribución de este artículo reside en evaluar la posibilidad de pensar en un Tanatoceno en conexión con el concepto de "suicidio de especie".

Comunidad, inmunidad, zoopolis: repensando la comunidad política más allá de lo humano (Revista de Filosofía)

by Diego Rossello and Matias Saidel

Revista de Filosofía , 2021

El presente trabajo discute el concepto de comunidad en la obra del teórico italiano Roberto Espo... more El presente trabajo discute el concepto de comunidad en la obra del teórico italiano Roberto Esposito y su relación con literatura reciente en la teoría de los derechos de los animales. Se argumenta que la communitas teorizada por Espósito constituye un aporte a la configuración de una comunidad más allá de lo humano, de un modo que al mismo tiempo enriquece y problematiza la idea de comunidad presupuesta, pero no teorizada explícitamente, por Sue Donaldson y Will Kymlicka en la noción de zoopolis.

All in the (Human) Family? Species Aristocratism in the Return of Human Dignity (Political Theory)

Human dignity is making a comeback. The paper focuses on the story that this comeback of human di... more Human dignity is making a comeback. The paper focuses on the story that this comeback of human dignity presupposes and recasts. In that story, the “human family” is portrayed in terms of aristocratic dignitas. The consequences are twofold: 1) human dignity is co-implicated with the de-animalization of the human being; 2) once de-animalization is introduced, the story of human dignity cultivates an aristocratic sense of elevation of the human over other species, or what I will call “species aristocratism”. The fact that a new kind of aristocratism based on species emerges from the story of human dignity should concern us, I suggest, because it not only confronts us with unintended consequences of relying on human dignity as the foundation of human rights but also invites us to rethink our contemporary egalitarian, democratic ethos, understood as aristocracy for all.

"To be human, nonetheless, remains a decision": Deciding to be Human in Contemporary Critical Political Theory (Contemporary Political Theory)

This paper suggests that humanism is a decisionism in contemporary critical political theory. Des... more This paper suggests that humanism is a decisionism in contemporary critical political theory. Despite obvious and multiple differences, leading critical theorists like Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Žižek, Eric Santner, and Jürgen Habermas, among others, share an investment in stabilizing the human being as a ground of the political. This stabilization of the human should concern political theorists, this paper argues, because it uncritically reproduces conceptual affinities between the notion of the human being and sovereign authority. By investing in the stability and centrality of the human being these theorists perform what will be called, paraphrasing an often neglected argument by Carl Schmitt, a decision to be human. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I argue that Schmitt’s decisionism is not merely circumscribed to sovereignty’s juridico-political dimension, but that it also includes a peculiar commitment to God’s decision to become human in Christ. Against this decisionism as humanism the essay draws on Walter Benjamin, Roberto Esposito and Jacques Derrida to propose an alternative politics that destabilizes humanity and sovereignty through the emergence of the animal, or what will be called melancholic lycanthropy.

Hobbes and the Wolf-Man: Melancholy and Animality in Modern Sovereignty (New Literary History)

The Penumbra of DA-RT: Transparency, Opacity, Normativity: A Response to Pérez Bentancur, Piñeiro Rodríguez, and Rosenblatt (APSA's Newsletter on Qualitative and Multi-Method Research)

Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, 2020

Borders, Affects, and Effects: Doing Animal Studies in Chile

by Manuel Tironi, Diego Rossello, and Colombina Schaeffer

In this review, we report the main discussions and concepts debated in the workshop " Animals and... more In this review, we report the main discussions and concepts debated in the workshop " Animals and Politics: Explorations for a More-Than-Human Democracy, " the first academic event on animal studies in Chile. After a brief overview of the workshop, we summarize its results by identifying three broad conversations that cut across the workshop—borders, affects, and effects.

La cuestión del animal en el concepto de lo político de Carl Schmitt: entre teología política y zoología política/The Question of the Animal in Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political: Between Political Theology and Political Zoology (Ideas y Valores)

¿Es el animal un tema de interés para Carl Schmitt? El sentido común académico presupone que la c... more ¿Es el animal un tema de interés para Carl Schmitt? El sentido común académico presupone que la cuestión del animal es ajena tanto a los intereses intelectuales de Schmitt como a su concepción de lo político, de lo teológico y de la relación que ambos mantienen entre sí. En este trabajo sugerimos que esta impresión debe ser revisada a la luz de evidencia textual que revela el interés de Schmitt por la cuestión del animal y de intérpretes de su obra que, aunque de manera tangencial, discuten dicha cuestión.
Palabras clave: Schmitt - animal - política - teología - zoología

Pluralizando la teología política: nuevas agendas en torno a un antiguo problema (Revista Síntesis, Nro. especial "Teología Política en un mundo post-secular")

Síntesis. Revista de Filosofía, 2019

Politizando la Ciencia Política: Paulo Ravecca y el "yo disciplinar" de la ciencia política latinoamericana. Comentario a Paulo Ravecca, The Politics of Political Science: Re-Writing Latin American Experiences (Eunomia: Revista en cultura de la legalidad)

Eunomía, 2019

Hay un malestar en la ciencia política latinoamericana. Si la tesis propuesta por Paulo Ravecca e... more Hay un malestar en la ciencia política latinoamericana. Si la tesis propuesta por Paulo Ravecca es correcta, la ciencia política latinoamericana debe comenzar a revisar sus presupuestos. De acuerdo al libro del politólogo uruguayo esta revisión debe ocurrir por lo menos en dos niveles: la historia y desarrollo de la ciencia política como disciplina en América Latina; los sesgos epistemológicos y normativos de una disciplina que no reflexiona sobre las relaciones de poder que la atraviesan y que, por ello, sabe poco de sí misma y se arriesga a saber menos de su objeto de estudio.

Reviews by Diego Rossello

La crisis de lo humano: notas para un debate sobre el antropoceno

Cuadernos de teoría social, 2025

Deparochializing Political Theory, de Melissa S.Williams (ed.)

Estudios Públicos

Reseña del libro Deparochializing Political Theory, de Melissa S.Williams (ed.)