Description
Book Synopsis* How are states made possible, constructed in theory and practice, and what alternative possibilities are given up by conferring legitimacy on states?
* How do ''reasons of state'' appropriate and inform discourses of sovereignty, territoriality, historiography, diplomacy, security and community?
* How can we employ language to challenge the problematic logics of international relations and imagine alternative ways of being with and relating to others?
States of Political Discourse addresses these questions through a series of highly original and provocative essays that engage a range of political conditions and practices, exploring areas that are conventionally neglected. Topics include the language of normal and pathological states in Freudian psychoanalysis, the mythography of Europe, the political reification of the Himalayan region, the spirituality of cosmopolitanism, the status of the Knights of St John, and the literary exploration of diplomacy and securi
Trade Review'The book is dense, and its analysis intense. Intellectually challenging claims are backed with meticulous research and philosophical rigour. It heralds new possiblities for research and analyses by intergrating overlooked methods and themes and by questioning the accuracy/paradoxes of widespread hellenogenic imports.' - Millenium Review
'Constantinou makes some serious claims and unsettling challenges to IR and politics.' - Dr Garen Karapetyan, Independent Scholar.
Table of ContentsForeword by R. B. J. Walker Acknowledgements Stasis, or the Seditious State Part 1: Metastasis 1. States, Ethnocratic States and States Within 2. Representations of Sovereignty on the Himalayas 3. Piracy, Knight-errantry, Statehood Part 2: Antistasis 4. Poetics of Security 5. Diplomacy, Grotesque Realism and Ottoman Historiography 6. NATO's Caps Part 3: Ekstasis 7. Europa Mythica 8. Hippopolis/Cynopolis Part 4: Hypostasis Notes
