The Politics of Purim by Jo Carruthers - 9780567702319

The Politics of PurimLaw, Sovereignty and Hospitality in the Aesthetic Afterlives of Esther\nAuthor(s): Jo Carruthers\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, United Kingdom\nImprint: T.& T.Clark Ltd\nISBN-13: 9780567702319, 978-0567702319\nSynopsis\nThis book approaches the holiday of Purim as profane, freed to human use and ends, in order to consider the political legacy of the biblical story of Esther in festival and art works. Jo Carruthers explores carnival and synagogue practices, the purimshpil (Purims own dramatic genre), illuminated Esther scrolls, as well as artworks by Botticelli, Millais and Jan Steen. The complex and astute interrogation of political life in such festival and artworks is analysed through theories of sovereignty, law, precarity and hospitality by key political thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Rancire. \n\nCarruthers considers different motifs of boundary cons.