Every God wants to die: Belated reflections on Westworld

A thoughtful piece on an excellent show by Adam Kotsko at AUFS: This is a show about the death of God, one of the most deeply theological shows I have seen. It is in many ways a Gnostic myth, with Jones in the role of evil demiurge and the long-lost Arnold representing the true God of…

Doom’s Law: Spaces of Sovereignty in Marvel’s Secret Wars

In light of Joseph Trullinger’s posts on Agamben, Carl Schmitt, and political theology from the last two weeks, here is another piece by Neal Curtis along the same lines discussing the concept of sovereignty in Marvel’s 2015 Secret Wars event. “This story, I will argue, enables us to get to the heart of a very complex…

Glorified Platitude: The Political Theology of The Young Pope: Part II

By Joseph Trullinger (Read Part I here) Before further detailing how Agamben’s concepts help to explain this regressive isolationist autocracy, it helps to know that he is building upon the theory of Carl Schmitt, the foremost jurist of the Nazi party, who sets forth in his Political Theology of 1922 the claim that “All significant…

Glorified Platitude: The Political Theology of The Young Pope: Part I

By Joseph Trullinger In trying to describe Paolo Sorrentino’s The Young Pope to a few of my friends in philosophy, I told them to imagine that the spirit of Giorgio Agamben had possessed the body of Quentin Tarantino to make a TV show. What I was trying to convey was the show’s curious duality: it’s…