Political Thought of Carl Schmitt

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Trinity 2025, Tuesdays 13:00-14:30, Seminar Room B, Manor Road Building

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was a controversial German thinker whose work has recently garnered new interest across the world. However, Schmitt’s writing is often challenging and convoluted owing to its 20th century German jurisprudential roots. This seminar seeks to demystify Schmitt’s political writings and offer participants good working knowledge of Schmitt’s main political ideas like decisionism, the friend-enemy distinction, and his critique of liberal democracy. All interested parties are welcome; no prior acquaintance with, or affection for, Schmitt necessary.

Unlinked readings will be distributed by email. Please email me to be added to the seminar’s mailing list. Where there are multiple readings per week, recommeded readings are demarkated with an asterix.

Week 1: Introduction [handout]

* Wolin, Richard. 1992. “Carl Schmitt: The Conservative Revolutionary Habitus and the Aesthetics of Horror.” Political Theory 20 (3): 424–47.

Strong, Tracy B. “Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes: Myth and Politics.” Foreword in Schmitt, Carl. The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol. Chicago: Univ. Of Chicago Press, 2008. pp. vii–xxviii.

Auer, Stefan. 2015. “Carl Schmitt in the Kremlin: The Ukraine Crisis and the Return of Geopolitics.” International Affairs 91 (5): 953–68.

Dugin, Aleksandr. 1994. “Carl Schmitt’s 5 Lessons for Russia” from The Conservative Revolution. Translated by Jafe Arnold.

Martinez Mitchell, Ryan. 2020. “Chinese Receptions of Carl Schmitt since 1929.” Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs. 8: 181.

Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang, Künkler Mirjam, and Tine Stein. 2017. Constitutional and Political Theory. Oxford University Press. pp. 10–18; 70–85.

Vermeule, Adrian. 2009. “Our Schmittian Administrative Law.” Harvard Law Review 122 (4): 1095–1150.

Specter, Matthew G., “What’s “Left” in Schmitt? From Aversion to Appropriation in Contemporary Political Theory”, in Jens Meierhenrich, and Oliver Simons (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt (2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 16 Dec. 2013).

Latour, Bruno. 2004. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 143–150.

Latour, Bruno. 2017. Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climate Regime. Polity: United Kingdom. pp. 220–254.

Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 1–31.

Bratton, Benjamin H. 2016. The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. pp. 19–40.

Week 2: Political Theology [handout]

Schmitt, Carl. [1922] 2005. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Translated by George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 5–66.

Week 3: The Concept of the Political [handout]

* Schmitt, Carl. [1932] 2007. The Concept of the Political. Chicago, Ill. Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 19–27; 37–53; 58–68.

Schmitt, Carl. [1928] 2008. Constitutional Theory. Durham, NC. Duke University Press. pp. 125–139.

Week 4: The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy [handout]

Schmitt, Carl. [1923] 1988. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. Translated by Ellen Kennedy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. pp. 18–21; 1–17.

Week 5: The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes []

Week 6: Political Romanticism []

Week 7: The Nomos of the Earth []

Week 8: State, Movement, People []