Redeemer Nation in the Interregnum interrogates the polyvalent role that American exceptionalism continues to play after 9/11. Whereas American exceptionalism is often construed as a discredited Cold War-era belief structure, Spanos persuasively demonstrates how it operationalizes an apparatus of biopolitical capture that saturates the American body politic down to its capillaries.The exceptionalism that Redeemer Nation in the Interregnum renders starkly visible is not a corrigible ideological screen. It is a deeply structured ethos that functions simultaneously on ontological, moral, economic, racial, gendered, and political registers as the American Calling. Precisely by refusing to answer the American Calling, by rendering inoperative (in Agamben's sense) its covenantal summons, Spanos enables us to imagine an alternative America.At once timely and personal, Spanos's meditation acknowledges the priority of being. He emphasizes the dignity not simply of humanity but of all phenomena on the continuum of being, "the groundless ground of any political formation that would claim the name of democracy."
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Redeemer Nation in the Interregnum
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Redeemer Nation in the Interregnum
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spanos, William V. Redeemer nation in te interregnum : an untimely meditation on te American vocation / William V. Spanos ; foreword by Donald E. Pease. — First edition. pages cm Includes bibliograpical references and index. ISBN ---- (ardback) — ISBN ---- (paper) . Exceptionalism—United States. . Political culture—United States. . Democracy—United States. I. Title. E..S .—dc
Printed in te United States of America
First edition
Dedicated to Paul Bové, Daniel O’Hara, and Donald Pease,
te profane Trinity— te noting, te fire, and te unoly bird— wose polyvalent force as guided me in my destruction of te American world I live in and my imaging of te polis tat will arise from its ases
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Contents
. . . .
Foreword: Witness to te Critical Imperatives of te Interregnumby Donald E. PeasePreface Acknowledgments
he Notingness of Being and te Spectacle: he American Sublime Revisited American Exceptionalism in te Post–/ Era: he Myt and te Reality “he Center Will Not Hold”: he Widening Gyre of te New, New Americanist Studies American Exceptionalism and te Calling: A Genealogy of te Vocational Etic
Appendix: he Debate World and te Making of te American Political Class—An Interview Conducted by Cristoper Spurlock wit William V. Spanos
Notes Index
ix xv xxi
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Foreword
Witness to the Critical Imperatives of the Interregnum
.
William V. Spanos’sRedeemer Nation in te Interregnum: An Untimely Meditation on te American Vocationbrings to fruition and provides te coda for a series of remarkable volumes—he Exceptionalist State and te State of Exception: Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd, Sailor”();Herman Melville and te American Calling: he Fiction After “Moby-Dick,” – ();andSock and Awe: American Exceptionalism and te Impera-tives of te Spectacle in Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Artur’s Court”()—in wic Spanos undertook a radical critique of American exceptionalism. In conducting tat ongoing critique, Spanos brougt togeter two critical dispositions—Gramsci’s dismantling of egemony as a “coercive ideological proect tat represents itself as uni-versal trut and finds its fulfillment in te ‘end of istory’ ” and Hei-degger’s destruction of “te global triump of te imperial logic of egemony.” his study continues Spanos’s criticaldestruktionof American exceptionalism, but itdiffers from its precursors in tat Spanos attests to te emergence of a way of being tat coincides wit te revocation of te American exceptionalist calling. he prase “An Untimely Meditation on te American Vocation” indicates wat sets tis volume apart from Spanos’s preceding volumes. InRedeemer Nation in te Interregnum, Spanos engages te polyvalent ideological connotations tat resonate around “American exceptional-ism” wen it is understood as te foundational trope of te American national identity. Wereas te vast maority of commentators on te term ave interpreted American exceptionalism as an ideological mystification