Law and the Exception

Gian-Giacomo Fusco is a lecturer in law at Kent Law School (University of Kent, Canterbury). He obtained his doctoral degree in law at the University of Kent. His research interests include jurisprudence, critical theory, history of ideas and urban studies. His more recent monograph, Form of Life: Agamben and the Destitution of Rules (2022), engaged with and developed further Agamben’s concept of destituent potential as a critique of the law.Przemysław Tacik is Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, Poland, and Director of the Nomos: Centre for International Research on Law, Culture and Power. A philosopher, lawyer and sociologist by education, he holds PhDs in philosophy (2014) and international law (2016), as well as habilitation in law (2024). He has been a visiting scholar at numerous universities. In his academic work, he combines both philosophical and legal perspectives, attempting to approach them from an interdisciplinary angle. His current research is focused on critical legal theory and contemporary philosophy. He has authored five books as well as over 60 articles and two translations of a poetry volume (from French to Polish). His most recent monographs are A New Philosophy of Modernity and Sovereignty: Towards Radical Historicization (2021) and Deconstructing the Right to Self-Determination in International Law: Sovereignty, Exception, Biopolitics (2023).

• Introduction 1. What is (State of) Exception the Name of? 2. Exceptionality: Towards the General Theory of Exception 3. Exceptionalisation: Distributing Exceptionality 4. Exceptionality, Exceptionalisation and Sovereignty 5. Liberal Legalism and the Normalisation of the Exception 6. State Form and Liberalism Authoritarian Drives