The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt collects thirty original chapters on the diverse oeuvre of one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Uniquely located at the intersection of law, the social sciences, and the humanities, it brings together sophisticated yet accessible interpretations of Schmitt's sprawling thought and complicated biography.

• List of Contributors


• A Chronology of Carl Schmitt's Life


• A List of Carl Schmitt's Writings


• Part I-Introduction


• 1 "A Fanatic of Order in an Epoch of Confusing Turmoil": The Political, Legal, and Cultural Thought of Carl Schmitt


• Jens Meierhenrich and Oliver Simons


• Part II-the lives of Carl Schmitt


• 2 "Catholic Layman of German Nationality and Citizenship"? Carl Schmitt and the Religiosity of Life


• Reinhard Mehring


• 3 The "True Enemy": Antisemitism in Carl Schmitt's Life and Thought


• Raphael Gross


• 4 Schmitt's Diaries


• Joseph W. Bendersky


• 5 Carl Schmitt in Plettenberg


• Christian Linder


• Part III-the political thought of Carl schmitt


• 6 Fearing the Disorder of Things: The Development of Carl Schmitt's Institutional Theory, 1919-1938


• Jens Meierhenrich


• 7 Carl Schmitt's Political Theory of Dictatorship


• Duncan Kelly


• 8 The Political Theology of Carl Schmitt


• Miguel Vatter


• 9 Teaching in Vain: Carl Schmitt, Thomas Hobbes, and the Theory of the Sovereign State


• John P. McCormick


• 10 Concepts of the Political in Twentieth-Century European Thought


• Samuel Moyn


• 11 Carl Schmitt's Defense of Democracy


• William Rasch


• 12 Same/Other versus Friend/Enemy: Levinas contra Schmitt


• Aryeh Botwinick


• 13 Carl Schmitt's Concepts of War: A Categorical Failure


• Benno Teschke


• 14 Carl Schmitt's Concept of History


• Matthias Lievens


• 15 What's "Left" in Schmitt? From Aversion to Appropriation in Contemporary Political Theory


• Matthew G. Specter


• Part IV-the legal thought of Carl Schmitt


• 16 A Jurist Confronting Himself: Carl Schmitt's Jurisprudential Thought


• Giorgio Agamben


• 17 Carl Schmitt and the Weimar Constitution


• Ulrich K. Preuss


• 18 The Concept of the Rule-of-Law State in Carl Schmitt's Verfassungslehre


• David Dyzenhaus


• 19 Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt: Growing Discord, Culminating in the "Guardian" Controversy of 1931


• Stanley L. Paulson


• 20 States of Emergency


• William E. Scheuerman


• 21 Politonomy


• Martin Loughlin


• 22 Carl Schmitt and International Law


• Martti Koskenniemi


• 23 Demystifying Schmitt


• Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule


• Part V-the Cultural Thought of Carl Schmitt


• 24 Carl Schmitt and Modernity


• Friedrich Balke


• 25 Is "the Political" a Romantic Concept? Novalis's Faith and Love or The King and Queen with Reference to Carl Schmitt


• Rüdiger Campe


• 26 Walter Benjamin's Esteem for Carl Schmitt


• Horst Bredekamp


• 27 Legitimacy of the Modern Age? Hans Blumenberg and Carl Schmitt


• Alexander Schmitz


• 28 Tragedy as Exception in Carl Schmitt's Hamlet or Hecuba


• David Pan


• 29 At the Limits of Rhetoric: Authority, Commonplace, and the Role of Literature in Carl Schmitt


• Johannes Türk


• 30 Carl Schmitt's Spatial Rhetoric


• Oliver Simons


• Bibliography


• Index

Jens Meierhenrich is Associate Professor of International Relations at London School of Economics.
Oliver Simons is Department Chair and Professor of Germanic Languages at Columbia University.