This essay explores the use of the concept of the messianic by Giorgio Agamben and Theodor Adorno. Throughout his work, Agamben consistently presents his reading of the messianic as an alternative to what he considers to be the ‘pessimistic’ negative dialectics of Adorno, which he argues ‘is an absolutely non-messianic form of thought’. For Agamben, the messianic brings dialectics to a ‘standstill’. This essay analyzes this deployment of the ‘messianic’ in his thought, and contrasts it with the perspective of Adorno. Agamben’s interpretation of Walter Benjamin is challenged with reference to a debate between Adorno and Benjamin over theology, dialectics, and politics.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1974) Minima Moralia (trans. E. F. N. Jephcott). London and New York: Verso.
2.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1977) ‘The Actuality of Philosophy’, Telos31: 120-33.
3.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1981) Prisms (trans. Samuel and Shierry Weber). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1984) ‘The Idea of a Natural History’ (trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor), Telos60.
5.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1992) Notes to Literature, Vol. 2 (trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen) . New York: Columbia University Press.
6.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1995) Negative Dialectics (trans. E. B. Ashton). New York: Continuum.
7.
Adorno, Theodor W. ( 1998) Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords (trans. Henry W. Pickford). New York: Columbia University Press.
8.
Adorno, Theodor W. and Benjamin, Walter ( 1999) The Complete Correspondence: 1928-1940 (ed. Henri Lonitz, trans. Nicholas Walker). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9.
Adorno, Theodor W. and Horkheimer, Max ( 2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (trans. Edmund Jephcott). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
10.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 1993) Infancy and History: Essays on the Destruction of Experience (trans. Liz Heron). London and New York: Verso.
11.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
12.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 1999) Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy (trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
13.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 2002a) The Open: Man and Animal (trans. Kevin Attell). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
14.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 2002b) Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive (trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen). New York: Zone Books.
15.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 2005a) State of Exception (trans. Kevin Attell). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
Agamben, Giorgio ( 2005b) The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (trans. Patricia Dailey). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
17.
Badiou, Alain ( 2003) Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (trans. Ray Brassier). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
18.
Benjamin, Walter ( 1969) Illuminations (ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn). New York: Schocken Books.
19.
Benjamin, Walter ( 1977) The Origin of German Tragic Drama (trans. John Osborne) . London: New Left Books.
20.
Benjamin, Walter ( 1996) Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (eds Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings ). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
21.
Cahn, Michael ( 1984) ‘Subversive Mimesis: Theodor W. Adorno and the Modern Impasse of Critique’, in Mihai Spariosu (ed.) Mimesis and Contemporary Theory, Vol. 1. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
22.
Davis, Creston, Milbank, John and Žižek, Slavoj ( 2005) Theology and the Political: A New Debate. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
23.
Hammer, Espen ( 2006) Adorno and the Political. London/ New York: Routledge.
24.
Klausner, Joseph ( 1955) The Messianic Idea in Israel: From its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah (trans. W. F. Stinespring). New York: Macmillan.
25.
Löwy, Michael ( 2005) Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept of History’. London/ New York: Verso.
26.
Lukàcs, Georg ( 1971) Theory of the Novel (trans. Anna Bostock). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schmitt, Carl ( 1988) Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (trans. Georg Schwab). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
29.
Schultz, Karla L. ( 1990) Mimesis on the Move. Berne/ New York: Peter Lang.
30.
Strauss, Leo ( 1968) Liberalism Ancient and Modern. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
31.
Strauss, Leo ( 1997) ‘Jerusalem and Athens: Some Preliminary Reflections’ , in Kenneth Hart Green (ed.) Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity. New York : SUNY Press.
32.
Vries, Hent de (ed.) (2006) Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World. New York: Fordham University Press.
