[Eine] ebenso fulminante wie zur Diskussion herausfordernde Studie [...]
Susanne Lüdemann in „Germanistik“ (2019 Band 60 Heft 1-2)
[...] The fluency of Fohrmann’s engagement with the theoretical frameworks of Schmitt’s and Freud’s work is matched by the acuity of its close readings and literary analyses, which together make the book of great interest to a wide audience of philosophers, political theorists, literary scholars, and comparatists. Feindschaft / Kultur is structured like a classical drama: its major chapters are conceived as „acts” or „scenes” (Szenen) that are framed by a prologue and an epilogue. While Schmitt and Freud are the book’s main theoretical protagonists, with supporting roles played by Kant and Arendt, the theatrical settings for their conceptual battles are provided by readings of Kleist’s Das Erdbeben in Chili, the biblical Offenbarung des Johannes, and Aeschylus’s Oresteia. [...] A liberation from the terror of sovereign violence can be found, Fohrmann argues, by giving form to its mythic substrate, a key achievement of drama and especially Greek tragedy. Scene 3 („Aischylos ‘Orestie’: Purpurblut und Gastlichkeit. Anagnorisis”), the finest of the book’s literary readings, exemplifies the book’s key argument that cultural transference and displacement can interrupt the cycle of mythic and sovereign violence. [...] Feindschaft / Kultur makes a theoretically sophisticated contribution to the understanding of the relationship between Schmitt and Freud, a connection that has received little attention in the scholarship [...]. [Feindschaft / Kultur] makes a significant and innovative contribution to both German intellectual history and literary studies, one that will be of great interest to scholars of political theology and to a general readership.
Michael McGillen in „Monatshefte“ (Vol. 111, No. 3, 2019)
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