Animal Magnetism: (Bio)Political Theologies Between the Creature and the Animal

The chapter explores alternative accounts of political theology in the works by Eric Santner and Jacques Derrida, where the creature and the animal take center stage. Whereas Santner explores the pressures and excitations of sovereignty over life, which render human beings creaturely, Derrida offers a genealogical account of the role played by the animal in the philosophical foundations of sovereign authority. Santner's and Derrida's accounts of the political theology of sovereignty are close, but they also differ in crucial ways: whereas the creature ultimately refers to a Creator, the animal or beast seems to remain naturalistic. The chapter explores a possible point of intersection between Santner's creature and Derrida's animal in the notion of "animal magnetism." According to this reading, Santner comes close to Derrida when the former argues that after monarchy ceases to be the symbolic nodal point of the social, the "royal touch" is democratised, and becomes widely available in the mesmeric idea of "animal magnetism."