This paper takes up the question of secrecy and sovereignty in Derrida’s final seminar on <i>The Beast and the Sovereign</i>. Focusing primarily on Derrida’s readings of Lacan and Celan in <i>Volume I</i>, it argues that, for Derrida, we should distinguish between the lie (or what Lacan calls...

In <i>The Beast and the Sovereign</i> v.1, Derrida argues that classical sovereignty is linked to the performative act of declaring oneself master. Thus, each sovereign asserts a distinction between the masterful self and the mastered other. Derrida contends that the sovereign distinction between self...