Table Of ContentEmpire of Liberty
RE-MAPPING THE TRANSNATIONAL
A Dartmouth Series in American Studies
series editor
Donald E. Pease
Avalon Foundation Chair of Humanities
Founding Director of the Futures of American Studies Institute
Dartmouth College
The emergence of Transnational American Studies in the wake of the Cold War
marks the most signifi cant reconfi guration of American Studies since its incep-
tion. The shock waves generated by a newly globalized world order demanded
an understanding of America’s embeddedness within global and local processes
rather than scholarly reaffi rmations of its splendid isolation. The series Re-
Mapping the Transnational seeks to foster the cross-national dialogues needed
to sustain the vitality of this emergent fi eld. To advance a truly comparativist
understanding of this scholarly endeavor, Dartmouth College Press welcomes
monographs from scholars both inside and outside the United States.
For a complete list of books available in this series, see www.upne.com.
Anthony Bogues, Empire of Liberty: Power, Desire, and Freedom
Bernd Herzogenrath, An American Body|Politic: A Deleuzian Approach
Johannes Voelz, Transcendental Resistance: The New Americanists and
Emerson’s Challenge
anthony bogues
Empire of Liberty
Power, Desire, and Freedom
dartmouth college press
hanover, new hampshire
Published by
University Press of New England
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Dartmouth College Press
Published by University Press of New England
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bogues, Anthony.
Empire of liberty : power, desire, and freedom / Anthony Bogues.
p. cm.—(Re-mapping the transnational)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-58465-930-3 (cloth : alk. paper)—isbn 978-1-58465-931-0 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Liberty. 2. United States—Foreign relations—Philosophy. 3. United States—
Foreign relations—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Imperialism—Moral and ethical
aspects. 5. Imperialism—Social aspects. I. Title.
jc585.b578 2010
327.73001—dc22 2010021296
5 4 3 2 1
To my grandmother Imogene
for all that she has taught me and
for my granddaughter Malia
with hopes for a more humane world.
contents
Acknowledgments ix
introduction 1
1 empire of liberty
Desire, Power, and the States of Exception 9
2 race, historical trauma, and democracy
The Politics of a Historical Wrong 38
3 death, power, violence, and new sovereignties 66
4 the end of history or the invention of existence
Critical Thought and Thinking about the Human 98
Notes 123
Bibliography 141
Index 149
acknowledgments
both this book of essays and a platform to think and refl ect aloud
would not have been possible without the enormous generosity of
Donald Pease. For a number of years we have been in dialogue
about America. We have not agreed all the time, but Don’s extra-
ordinary insights always stimulate me to think again, even when I
return to my original positions. Additionally, Don’s broad and deep
generosity, securely anchored in a rich conception of the life of the
mind, has been a model in an academy driven by the marketization
and banal professionalization of scholarship. Thank you, Don.
Many ideas in these essays gestated in conversations with colleagues
in the boundary 2 collective, particularly Ronald Judy, Paul Bové,
Joe Buttigieg, and Hortense Spillers. Each of these colleagues has
argued, agreed, or made objections known in different forums. For
this I want to thank them. The other members of the boundary 2
collective have been an important intellectual source of criticism
and support as I have stumbled through my efforts to understand
America. The undergraduate students in my senior seminar class
“Race, Empire, and Modernity,” in the Africana Studies Depart-
ment at Brown University, have quizzed, pushed back, and opened
new lines of inquiry. I thank all the students who have taken this
seminar. Brown University is a special place for undergraduate edu-
cation, and the participation of these students in the seminar added
immensely to the lectures and subsequent essays. When the lectures
were revised, I had a series of conversations with the novelist John
Edgar Wideman, who teaches at Brown. Those conversations found
