Arthur Bradley, Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy – Columbia University Press, November 2024

To become sovereign, one must be seen as sovereign. In other words, a sovereign must appear—philosophically, politically, and aesthetically—on the stage of power, both to themselves and to others, in order to assume authority. In this sense, sovereignty is a theatrical phenomenon from the very beginning.

This book explores the relationship between theater and sovereignty in modern political theory, philosophy, and performance. Arthur Bradley considers the theatricality of power—its forms, dramas, and iconography—and examines sovereignty’s modes of appearance: thrones, insignia, regalia, ritual, ceremony, spectacle, marvels, fictions, and phantasmagoria. He weaves together political theory and literature, reading figures such as Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida, and Agamben alongside writers including Shakespeare, Cervantes, Schiller, Melville, Valéry, Kafka, Ionesco, and Genet. 

Formally inventive and deeply interdisciplinary, Staging Sovereigntyoffers a surprising and original narrative of political modernity from early modern political theology to the age of neoliberal capitalism.

Update August 2025: There is an interview about the book with Richard B. Gibson at the Blog of the APA. Thanks to dmf for this link. There is also a review by K. Daniel Cho at Theory, Culture & Society.