Permanent Exceptionality

Exceptionality as the new normal and current ways of dominion. 

Sovereignty is back among us. We don't always see it, but it's present—embodied in different figures, it controls our everyday lives and incessantly applies a permanent sense of exceptionality to them. By recovering the legal and military language of the 20th century in this book that is somewhere between a crónica and an essay, Gozalo Salellas updates the concept of a "state of exception" in modern societies and breaks down the six teleological and somatic states that sovereignty currently uses. Reflecting on its power means having a better understanding of a key condition of our times.

"Ignasi Gozalo Salellas describes the 20s during the 21st century as a sheaf of ‘states’ chaired by exceptionality with succinct brilliance: institutional, technological, and emotional exceptionalities that amplify all of our vulnerabilities while eroding the democratic future of global society." —Santiago Alba Rico

"Exceptionality has become normalized and has infiltrated all dimensions of life. We live in times of emergency that feed into our fears. This book by Ignasi Gozalo Salellas is an invitation to reflect instead of react, to understand instead of judge. Using a kaleidoscope of scenes from recent times—from Trump's victory and the pandemic to the Catalan independence process or the mental health crisis among young people—it manages to show the depth of a present that goes beyond the dictatorship of 'actuality.'" —Marina Garcés