Homo Sacer: Muslims as outlaws in American political thought

As the United States of America has embraced and defended its right to operate with impunity on a global battlefield, Muslims in particular have found themselves in an increasingly Western-controlled and anti-Muslim world in terms not only spatial but also discursive, with Western intervention not only military but also ideological. Much has been written about the roots of anti-Muslim thought in the civilizational conflict between the Christian and Muslim worlds, or Euro-American racism and xenophobia, but the developments of the American War on Terror deserve a political analysis that measures the systemic impact on the safety of Muslims in the American order, with an eye for opportunities to strengthen their position. Giorgio Agamben’s philosophical work on outlawry and bare life in the Roman figure of homo sacer provide a field for this analysis, of which this thesis focuses on the Muslim American citizen as the Muselmann - he limit figure of humanity - in the global camp. How historical is Agamben's theory,and how contemporary? I argue that Agamben's theory is even more historical than he himself proves, and that Muslims in America, even the citizens among them, are the latest – but also, the most fundamental – example of bare life at the center of America's civil war.