Misinterpellated Subject

James R. Martel is Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University and the author of several books, most recently, The One and Only Law: Walter Benjamin and the Second Commandment.

• Acknowledgments  ixIntroduction. Unsummoned! When the Call Is Not Meant for You  1Part I. Subjects of the Call1. From "Hey, You There!" to "Wait Up!": The Workings (and Unworkings) of Interpellation  352. "Men Are Born Free and Equal in Rights": Historical Examples of Interpellation aend Misinterpellation  583. "Tiens, un NÈgre": Fanon and the Refusal of Colonial Subjectivity  96Part II. The One(s) Who Showed Up4. "[A Person] Is Something That Shall Be Overcome": The Misinterpellated Messiah, or How Nietzsche Saves Us from Salvation  1335. "Come, Come!": Bartleby and Lily Briscoe as Nietzschean Subjects  1636. "Consent to Not Be a Single Being": Resisting Identity, Confronting the Law in Kafka's Amerika, Ellison's Invisible Man, and Coates's Between the World and Me   1987. "I Can Believe": Breaking the Circuits of Interpellation in von Trier's Breaking the Waves  243Conclusion. The Misinterpellated Subject: Anarchist All the Way Down  266Notes  275Bibliography  309Index  317

"In this brilliant new theory of political agency, James R. Martel pushes a politics for the failed, flawed, and damaged people we actually are. Rejecting the heroism that binds us to authority, he looks to the ones who show up, unexpected and unwanted. Through original readings of Althusser, Fanon, and others, Martel strips politics of all guarantees. Freedom is possible, if we want it." - Jodi Dean author of (Crowds and Party) "With its rich and provocative readings of diverse events and texts, Martel’s book would deserve wide-ranging praise simply for being a master-class in literary interpretation, but it goes much further in introducing and carefully developing a convincing theory of misinterpellation." - Smita A. Rahman (Theory & Event) “James Martel has given us a fine, well-written, and inspiring book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in subjectivity, ideology, recognition, representation, and resistance.” - Lasse Thomassen (Political Theory) "A work of great interest. . . . Althusser taught us to judge books by their theoretical and practical effects. The effect of James Martel’s The Misinterpellated Subject is to show that confronting the problem of subjection, and Althusser’s reflections on it, remains an unavoidable, even urgent, task." - Warren Montag (Postmodern Culture)