The Biopolitical Theatre: Tracing Sovereignty and History in the 2009 Iranian Show-Trials
The Biopolitical Theatre: Tracing Sovereignty and History in the 2009 Iranian Show-Trials by Setareh Shohadaei BA, Simon Fraser University, 2008 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Political Science with a concentration in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought Setareh Shohadaei, 2011 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee The Biopolitical Theatre: Tracing Sovereignty and History in the 2009 Iranian Show-Trials by Setareh Shohadaei BA, Simon Fraser University, 2008 Supervisory Committee Dr. R.B.J. Walker, Department of Political Science Supervisor Dr. Warren Magnusson, Department of Political Science Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. R.B.J. Walker, Department of Political Science Supervisor Dr. Warren Magnusson, Department of Political Science Departmental Member This work looks at the 2009 Iranian show-trials through modern discourses of biopolitics, sovereignty, and history. I argue that, understood as a theatrical phenomenon, the show trials are situated within the Foucauldian mode of biopower. The latter entails a shift from a politics of death to the preservation of the bios. The show-trials also perform a particularly modern narrative of state sovereignty and teleological history. To consider them in this way requires a rethinking of Michel Foucault’s theory so as to include juridico-philosophical discourse within a biopolitical framework. I propose that, as a performative act, the confessions transform the very thing they are confessing. Through the work of Jean Baudrillard and Jacque Derrida, I argue that the confessions make possible a reconceptualization of the political space of sovereignty as simulacrum and that of the political time of history as hauntology.
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