Homo Sanctus and the Countersovereignty of Sanctuary: Agamben,Roman Law,Democratic Resistance

Abstract

This article attempts to articulate a theory of sovereign power that reveals, yet compensates for, certain shortcomings in Agamben’s homo sacer paradigm. Taking issue with the textual basis and normative implications of his notion of “sacred/bare life,” I offer an alternative notion of biopolitical subjectivity I call “sanctified life.” Based on a close reading, first, of Macrobius’s commentary on the homo sacer of Vergil’s Aeneid, and second, of the tripartite sacrum–religiosum–sanctum classification in ancient Roman law, I argue that sanctified life expresses a democratic countersovereignty that resists the state in the service of a life-affirming politics.