Liquid Sovereignty: Moby-Dick, reservoirs of power and the anointed body Arthur Bradley and Niall Gildea
Event details
To become sovereign, you must be seen as sovereign. In other words, a sovereign must appear - philosophically, politically, and aesthetically - on the stage of power, both to themselves and to others, in order to assume authority. In this sense, sovereignty is a theatrical phenomenon from the very beginning.
Arthur Bradley, author of Staging Sovereignty, will examine Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and whale oil in relation to a longer history of anointment of sovereigns and the legitimisation of political power more broadly – a history which tells us much about our present-day relationship to sovereignty and displays of power.
Afterwards, Arthur will discuss the special relevance of literary texts to his overall political project with Niall Gildea of York St John University and answer audience questions.
About the speakers
Arthur Bradley is Professor of Comparative Literature at Lancaster University. His work focuses on the intersections between comparative literature, political theory, philosophy, and religion. Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy (Columbia University Press, 2024) has been hailed as ‘a brilliant analysis of the immanence of theatricality to political power and authority in the modern European tradition’ (Eric Santner). His other books include Originary Technicity: The Theory of Technology from Marx to Derrida (2011) and Unbearable Life: A Genealogy of Political Erasure (2019).
Niall Gildea is a Lecturer in English Literature at York St John University. He is the author of Jacques Derrida’s Cambridge Affair: Deconstruction, Philosophy, and Institutionality (2019), and editor of the forthcoming volume, Raymond Williams and Structures of Feeling (2025).
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