Messianism and the State of Exception
Ida Auken, University of Copenhagen
Giorgio Agamben draws heavily on Walter Benjamin in his interpretation of the current political situation, where the state of exception has become the rule. In The Time That Remains Agamben presents a reading of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans looking for a way to overcome this permanent state of exception. Agamben finds the answer in bringing about the real state of exception – a concept Agamben also borrows from Benjamin. In this paper the relationship between the state of exception and the real state of exception brought about by the Messiah is explored and interpreted in the light of Sergio Corbucci’s spaghetti western “Il Grande Silenzio” (1968).