The Babylon Complex: Theopolitical Fantasies of War, Sex, and Sovereignty

The Babylon Complex tracks frequent and contradictory allusions to Babylon/Babelin U.S. culture and politics. It suggests that references to Babylon tell us something about a conflicted national relation to sovereignty. Tracing religious and secularized practices of biblical interpretation as they are shaped historically and philosophically, Erin Runions makes visible the multiple ways that Babylon is used to comment on national debates over sexuality, war, and the pursuit of capital. Ultimately, the figure of Babylon shows the ambiguous use of the Bible in a nation bent on shoring up the sovereignty that it also undermines.