Join Professor Trullinger on Friday, 2/10 at 7 PM in the Club Room for
Exceptionalism in The Dark Knight: The Movie Experience You Don’t Need but Definitely Deserve Right Now
Is it permissible to go outside the law to stop outlaws? This question runs throughout Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which portrays the character of Batman as grounded in the struggles of familiar reality: he faces a Gotham of political machinations, disaffected citizens, and corrupt cops. Into this mix comes the Joker, an agent of chaos whose unpredictable behavior sets up a clash of perspectives on the legitimacy of law and democracy in a time of crisis. Widely hailed as a thought-provoking allegory for America’s War on Terror, The Dark Knight stimulates questions as much as thrills, and we will host a discussion about the movie afterwards, in the light of a brief presentation of Carl Schmitt’s theory of exceptionalism. We supply the movie and snacks. You supply good company and thoughts.
