Binding Violence

"What I find most striking in this work is its originality: Fradinger relates to one another three very different ages, and three kinds of writing, which appear to have no relation to each other, and shows that these three authors raise the same question. Her project is brilliantly pursued in a clear and sophisticated manner." - Marcel Henaff, University of California, San Diego "Binding Violence is a tour de force of humanistic erudition as well as one of the best interdisciplinary essays that I have read. Fradinger shows how the literary imagination is able to register the violent undercurrents that are unleashed when Western democracy becomes the sovereign paradigm." - Cesar A. Salgado, University of Texas at Austin "As communities are inevitably constituted, membership in the political sphere relentlessly demands a concomitant act of violent exclusion. With this as its premise, Binding Violence offers astonishing new readings of Sophocles' Antigone and key works of Sade, as well as transforming our understanding of the nature of power in Vargas Llosa's dictator novel. Moira Fradinger thus brings together fiercely intelligent readings and reflections about the literary text, political theory, history and the contemporary political scene." - Carol Jacobs, Yale University