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Key research themes
1. How does Walter Benjamin's distinction between divine and mythic violence deepen our understanding of political violence and its critique?
This theme investigates Benjamin’s seminal conceptualization of violence in his 'Critique of Violence' (1921), especially his distinction between divine (law-annihilating) and mythic (law-positing and law-preserving) violence. It explores how this differentiation reframes traditional debates around the legitimacy, role, and theological underpinnings of violence in politics, law, and social order. The significance lies in providing a nuanced framework to understand violence that transcends simplistic legalistic or instrumental interpretations, highlighting the paradoxical, transformative potential of violence and its complex relationship with law and justice.
Key finding: This essay argues that the notion of duty in deontological morality inherently excludes consideration of context and moderation, thus precipitating extreme violence akin to Benjamin’s concept of mythic violence. It critiques... Read more
Key finding: By applying Benjamin’s notion of divine violence to the political phenomenon of lynching in Mexico, the paper reveals how such brutal collective acts function as a form of non-instrumental, symbolic political violence that... Read more
Key finding: This study situates Benjamin’s critique within a mythological-political framework, arguing that democracy suppresses the violent character of its power through mythic narratives legitimizing state violence. It posits that an... Read more
Key finding: Interpreting Benjamin’s concept of divine violence as manifest in 'educative violence', the paper reveals that violence within education need not be viewed solely as repressive but can have emancipatory, law-annihilating... Read more
Key finding: This paper applies Benjamin’s concept of divine violence to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, particularly interpreting the play’s final ambiguous line 'Let be' as an embrace of radical action beyond established legal and moral orders.... Read more
2. What roles do the political, social, and ideological constructions of violence play in mediating between biological aggression and social violence?
This theme centers on interdisciplinary attempts to unpack the complexities of violence vis-à-vis its biological bases, social constructions, and experiential effects. It questions how violence as a lived, embodied phenomenon surpasses biological instincts of aggression and becomes embedded in cultural, psychological, and institutional frameworks, thus bridging natural science and social theory insights. The importance lies in reconciling the view of violence as both a somatic response and a socially patterned practice, which has implications for violence prevention and critique.
Key finding: The paper synthesizes scientific findings on human aggression to argue that violence is not simply a biological imperative but shaped critically by social relationships and contexts that transform aggression into violence. It... Read more
Key finding: Utilizing Girard's concept of sacrificial crisis, this article exposes how educational and broader social practices render violence invisible or normalized, masking its multifaceted forms. It argues this invisibility is tied... Read more
Key finding: Employing the concept of slow violence, the study identifies how discursive practices conceal and normalize violence through fatalistic acceptance, managerial inaction, and afflictive blame, which socially foreclose awareness... Read more
Key finding: This phenomenological analysis of everyday narco-culture violence in Mexico reveals how extreme brutality becomes normalized through media saturation, creating a desensitized social witness. The work challenges conventional... Read more
Key finding: Framing nonviolence as a complex, performative, and contested concept rather than mere negation of violence, the essay explores its manifestations in contemporary art practices. By analyzing case studies, it elucidates how... Read more
3. How can Walter Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Violence’ inform contemporary understandings of law, labor transformation, and the suspension of legal order?
This theme explores Benjamin’s still underexamined insights into the fundamental contradictions of law, particularly the gap between ideal legal rights and empirical reality. It focuses on his association of the proletarian general strike as a form of pure violence capable of suspending law to enable a total transformation of labor and social relations. By linking Benjamin with Marx and critical theorists like Rancière and Hegel, this line of research interrogates the possibility of revolutionary praxis that disrupts and redefines legal and political orders.
Key finding: This paper advances a reading of Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence' emphasizing that a suspension of law, achieved through proletarian general strike, requires a complete transformation of labor itself. It critiques prevailing... Read more
Key finding: Developing Benjaminian insights through Hegel, Rancière, and Marx, the paper contends that the perennial legal contradiction between formal rights and lived inequality demands revolutionary suspension of law—underscored by... Read more
Key finding: By juxtaposing Benjamin’s and Sorel’s discussions of violence as pure praxis, the study demonstrates how they conceptualize the strike and myth as forms of non-instrumental, transformative violence essential to political... Read more
Key finding: This work interprets Benjamin's critical delineation of natural and positive law, emphasizing the dual function of violence as both lawmaking and law preserving. It highlights the state's monopoly over legitimate violence and... Read more
Key finding: The introduction maps the historical reception and rising critical prominence of Benjamin’s essay, especially within Agamben’s oeuvre, underscoring its contemporary relevance to biopolitics, sovereignty, and legal theory. It... Read more