Conspiracy : James Martel

Conspiracy is a concept much maligned by political theorists in the western tradition. It is generally regarded as an attempt by a self appointed group of collaborators to illicitly subvert existing forms of politics by secret actions. Many western thinkers are on record for denouncing and defying conspiracies. Cicero is famous for his attacks on and . . .

Demonization : Nathaniel Berman

One of the most powerful tactics in current political debates is to accuse one’s opponent of “demonizing” the target of his or her critique. The charge almost always forces the other on the defensive – ranging from the petulant (“I wasn’t demonizing, I was just making specific criticisms”) to the childish (“I’m the one who’s demonizing?! You’re the one who’s . . .

Hope : Bruce Robbins

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. One rarely hears this famous formula mentioned except with approval, and that is remarkable for a formula that is mentioned so often. When we pronounce these by now almost ritualized words, we feel that we are being properly tough-minded but that we are simultaneously managing as we feel is our paradoxical duty . . .

Horror : Kiarina Kordela

Other differences notwithstanding, theoreticians tend to concur in that horror is not a cognitive but a physiological or affective extra-discursive state of being. Not unlike the state of having fever or feeling nausea, horror is a state of being, whose manifestation, based on the etymologies of the Greek φρικη [frike] and the Latin horror, may be . . .

Resilience: Bonnie Honig

Resilience is defined in the OED as the “action or an act of rebounding or springing back; rebound, recoil” or as “Elasticity; the power of resuming an original shape or position after compression, bending, etc.” or as “the work given back by the spring after being strained to the extreme limit within which it can be strained again and again.” The concept “resilience”. . .