Perhaps the whole of human history could be summed up with one word: economy. The law of the home and the home of all law. Without fail, this situation results in a structured devotion that must decide what to do with desire. And the economic decision often follows a violent trajectory, most commonly described as sacrifice. Today, states will make efforts to conceal this underlying logic, but the insidious configurations of ‘real politik’ usually surface with a frightening intensity.
My project considers these problematic vestiges through Emmanuel Levinas’s reconfiguration of subjectivity. To address these bio-historical realities, my work highlights the role of the martyr in Levinas’s philosophy. As with other philosophical and religious concepts, I argue that Levinas inverts the dynamic of martyrdom by deposing the fundamentally agential subject. From this redefinition of the martyr as primary subjectivity emerges a politics of recurrence—in stark contrast to the politics of sovereignty dominant in the framework of a liberal nation-state. I place Levinas’s conception of the subject alongside Girard’s analysis of mimetic desire, out of which develops a different desire, which I here name “expropriative desire.” In the move from appropriation to expropriation, a space is opened for the aforementioned politics of recurrence, with an infinite demand serving as the catalyst for emancipatory struggle.
","abstract_html":"<p>Perhaps the whole of human history could be summed up with one word: economy. The law of the home and the home of all law. Without fail, this situation results in a structured devotion that must decide what to do with desire. And the economic decision often follows a violent trajectory, most commonly described as sacrifice. Today, states will make efforts to conceal this underlying logic, but the insidious configurations of ‘real politik’ usually surface with a frightening intensity.</p> <p>My project considers these problematic vestiges through Emmanuel Levinas’s reconfiguration of subjectivity. To address these bio-historical realities, my work highlights the role of the martyr in Levinas’s philosophy. As with other philosophical and religious concepts, I argue that Levinas inverts the dynamic of martyrdom by deposing the fundamentally agential subject. From this redefinition of the martyr as primary subjectivity emerges a politics of recurrence—in stark contrast to the politics of sovereignty dominant in the framework of a liberal nation-state. I place Levinas’s conception of the subject alongside Girard’s analysis of mimetic desire, out of which develops a different desire, which I here name “expropriative desire.” In the move from appropriation to expropriation, a space is opened for the aforementioned politics of recurrence, with an infinite demand serving as the catalyst for emancipatory struggle.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Lawrence, Joshua Alan"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Sarah Pessin","Carl Raschke","Cathie Kelsey"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2021,"date_issued":"2021-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2021-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:02:19Z","subjects":["Desire","Exposure","Martyr","Phenomenology","Recurrence","Subject","Other Philosophy","Philosophy","Religion","Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
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My project considers these problematic vestiges through Emmanuel Levinas’s reconfiguration of subjectivity. To address these bio-historical realities, my work highlights the role of the martyr in Levinas’s philosophy. As with other philosophical and religious concepts, I argue that Levinas inverts the dynamic of martyrdom by deposing the fundamentally agential subject. From this redefinition of the martyr as primary subjectivity emerges a politics of recurrence—in stark contrast to the politics of sovereignty dominant in the framework of a liberal nation-state. I place Levinas’s conception of the subject alongside Girard’s analysis of mimetic desire, out of which develops a different desire, which I here name “expropriative desire.” In the move from appropriation to expropriation, a space is opened for the aforementioned politics of recurrence, with an infinite demand serving as the catalyst for emancipatory struggle.
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My project considers these problematic vestiges through Emmanuel Levinas’s reconfiguration of subjectivity. To address these bio-historical realities, my work highlights the role of the martyr in Levinas’s philosophy. As with other philosophical and religious concepts, I argue that Levinas inverts the dynamic of martyrdom by deposing the fundamentally agential subject. From this redefinition of the martyr as primary subjectivity emerges a politics of recurrence—in stark contrast to the politics of sovereignty dominant in the framework of a liberal nation-state. I place Levinas’s conception of the subject alongside Girard’s analysis of mimetic desire, out of which develops a different desire, which I here name “expropriative desire.” In the move from appropriation to expropriation, a space is opened for the aforementioned politics of recurrence, with an infinite demand serving as the catalyst for emancipatory struggle.
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