Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STATEPERSONIFICATION (The racialized Leviathan: A History of state personifications, from Hobbes to Sarmiento)
Período documentado: 2023-02-01 hasta 2025-01-31
This project traces the development of a literary and pictorial form that articulates political ideas: personification. I show how personification served in early modern times to convey notions of state order and of disorder. The focus is on two European models of state personification. The first, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, which represented the idea of an absolute and sovereign political entity through its original conception as a person. The second is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s concept of the public person and, more broadly, the emergence of Marianne as the embodiment of the newly envisioned republic in 18th-century France. In parallel, these concepts of the state are linked to a personified counterpart: America, imagined as a space of barbarism, lacking political organization and seen only as a territory to be transplanted with one.
The project explores an unconventional and previously unexamined trajectory. Its third part traces how the contradiction between European personifications of the state and of America takes on a syncretic form in 19th-century South America. Domingo Sarmiento aimed to describe a creole order that bypassed Europe’s supposedly inevitable civilizational principles and instead systematized barbarism. The figure created by Sarmiento, Facundo, personifies the caudillo order—a distinctive form of leadership emerging from the Pampas. Like Hobbes and Rousseau, Sarmiento understood that this new version of statehood needed to be embodied in a concrete form through personification. Yet, unlike them, he did not frame it in opposition to America. Facundo serves as a paradoxical synthesis and, ultimately, a culmination of this conceptual pairing.
The transatlantic intellectual history developed here traces an original and coherent thread in three key respects.
[1] Philosophy of History: Its main exponents, including Hobbes, Rousseau, and Sarmiento, believe that History has a direction. European political forms will eventually prevail over native American barbarism.
[2] Use of Personification: Each of these thinkers employs the figure of personification to make sense of what they perceive as novel understandings of political order.
[3] Synthesis instead of Replacement: The conclusion of my research in Sarmiento’s Facundo should not be surprising. The philosophy of history that underpins this narrative suggests a necessary resolution to the opposition between European order and American barbarism. However, Sarmiento observes that on the periphery of the American continent, a new political entity is resisting the forces of progress. European civilization does not simply implant itself and prevail; instead, the caudillo state absorbs certain elements of civilization while simultaneously “barbarizing” them. It is precisely because this form of organization defies easy explanation and subverts the expected course of History that Sarmiento turns to personification as a means of representation.
The project explores an unconventional and previously unexamined trajectory. Its third part traces how the contradiction between European personifications of the state and of America takes on a syncretic form in 19th-century South America. Domingo Sarmiento aimed to describe a creole order that bypassed Europe’s supposedly inevitable civilizational principles and instead systematized barbarism. The figure created by Sarmiento, Facundo, personifies the caudillo order—a distinctive form of leadership emerging from the Pampas. Like Hobbes and Rousseau, Sarmiento understood that this new version of statehood needed to be embodied in a concrete form through personification. Yet, unlike them, he did not frame it in opposition to America. Facundo serves as a paradoxical synthesis and, ultimately, a culmination of this conceptual pairing.
The transatlantic intellectual history developed here traces an original and coherent thread in three key respects.
[1] Philosophy of History: Its main exponents, including Hobbes, Rousseau, and Sarmiento, believe that History has a direction. European political forms will eventually prevail over native American barbarism.
[2] Use of Personification: Each of these thinkers employs the figure of personification to make sense of what they perceive as novel understandings of political order.
[3] Synthesis instead of Replacement: The conclusion of my research in Sarmiento’s Facundo should not be surprising. The philosophy of history that underpins this narrative suggests a necessary resolution to the opposition between European order and American barbarism. However, Sarmiento observes that on the periphery of the American continent, a new political entity is resisting the forces of progress. European civilization does not simply implant itself and prevail; instead, the caudillo state absorbs certain elements of civilization while simultaneously “barbarizing” them. It is precisely because this form of organization defies easy explanation and subverts the expected course of History that Sarmiento turns to personification as a means of representation.
The theoretical underpinnings of my project are complete. I have gathered sufficient evidence to support my thesis about the conception of new ideas of the state in the form of a person. The absolutist, republican, and caudillo models of the state each render different forms of personhood, but all rely on the figure of personification to acquire concrete expression. In parallel, general definitions of personification as a rhetorical and graphic device are comprehensive enough to account for each of these new conceptions of the state.
The transatlantic thread unraveled in my project has significant knots: Hobbes, Rousseau, and Sarmiento. However, I am equally attentive to the fibers linking these knots together. The transition from Hobbes’s idea of the state to Rousseau’s is, on the one hand, direct and natural, given Rousseau’s engagement with and reworking of Hobbes’s main insights concerning sovereignty and representation. On the other hand, Rousseau drew from French humanist sources to experiment with the figure of prosopopoeia, or personification—evident in his “prosopopoeia of Fabricius” in the First Discourse—and more broadly in his conception of a Republic as a moral person, endowed with a general will. The jurist Jean Bouhier’s account of representation through prosopopoeia, which allows dead persons to speak, likely influenced Rousseau. He may also have drawn inspiration from the style of César Dumarsais and the abbot Gabriel de Mably’s conception of personification.
The French discourse had a profound impact on Domingo Sarmiento’s unique way of articulating his political ideas. Sarmiento frequently cites Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mably, and Benjamin Constant, all of whom undoubtedly shaped his style. More specifically, Sarmiento drew on Volney’s use of the “shadow” of Liberty to craft his personification of the caudillo state as the shadow of Facundo. He also leveraged Victor Cousin’s simplification of Hegel’s ideas to argue that the phenomenon of caudillismo can be personified in a semi-fictitious character.
The main achievement of my project is the successful construction of a coherent history of state personifications, supported by textual evidence.
The transatlantic thread unraveled in my project has significant knots: Hobbes, Rousseau, and Sarmiento. However, I am equally attentive to the fibers linking these knots together. The transition from Hobbes’s idea of the state to Rousseau’s is, on the one hand, direct and natural, given Rousseau’s engagement with and reworking of Hobbes’s main insights concerning sovereignty and representation. On the other hand, Rousseau drew from French humanist sources to experiment with the figure of prosopopoeia, or personification—evident in his “prosopopoeia of Fabricius” in the First Discourse—and more broadly in his conception of a Republic as a moral person, endowed with a general will. The jurist Jean Bouhier’s account of representation through prosopopoeia, which allows dead persons to speak, likely influenced Rousseau. He may also have drawn inspiration from the style of César Dumarsais and the abbot Gabriel de Mably’s conception of personification.
The French discourse had a profound impact on Domingo Sarmiento’s unique way of articulating his political ideas. Sarmiento frequently cites Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mably, and Benjamin Constant, all of whom undoubtedly shaped his style. More specifically, Sarmiento drew on Volney’s use of the “shadow” of Liberty to craft his personification of the caudillo state as the shadow of Facundo. He also leveraged Victor Cousin’s simplification of Hegel’s ideas to argue that the phenomenon of caudillismo can be personified in a semi-fictitious character.
The main achievement of my project is the successful construction of a coherent history of state personifications, supported by textual evidence.
I contribute to advancing the state of the art in three main ways:
[1] Hobbes and America: I analyze Hobbes’ depiction of America as an example of the liberty inherent in the state of nature, where the absence of political agency renders it incapable of producing the most sophisticated human artifact: the state. This deficiency not only makes it susceptible to colonization but also denies it self-representation. To symbolize this material and figurative impotence, Hobbes uses the image of a native American woman, evoking both terror and contempt.
[2] Rousseau and Personification: My analysis of Rousseau’s use of personification—particularly his conceptualization of the Republic as a moral person endowed with a general will—fills a significant gap in scholarship, establishing new ground in this area.
[3] Sarmiento and the Caudillo State: I break new ground by dissecting Sarmiento’s depiction of the caudillo state into three defining traits that systematize what he terms barbarism:
a. Nomos and Spatial Organization: Sarmiento defines the caudillo state as a political entity structured around land boundaries accessible by wagon, while deliberately preventing free river navigation.
b. Guerrilla Tactics: The caudillo state conducts warfare through the use of the montonera, a strategy resembling guerrilla operations rather than the “civilized” methods of war Sarmiento idealizes.
c. Personality Cult: This form of statehood relies heavily on political iconography and the establishment of a leadership cult centered on the figure of the caudillo.
[1] Hobbes and America: I analyze Hobbes’ depiction of America as an example of the liberty inherent in the state of nature, where the absence of political agency renders it incapable of producing the most sophisticated human artifact: the state. This deficiency not only makes it susceptible to colonization but also denies it self-representation. To symbolize this material and figurative impotence, Hobbes uses the image of a native American woman, evoking both terror and contempt.
[2] Rousseau and Personification: My analysis of Rousseau’s use of personification—particularly his conceptualization of the Republic as a moral person endowed with a general will—fills a significant gap in scholarship, establishing new ground in this area.
[3] Sarmiento and the Caudillo State: I break new ground by dissecting Sarmiento’s depiction of the caudillo state into three defining traits that systematize what he terms barbarism:
a. Nomos and Spatial Organization: Sarmiento defines the caudillo state as a political entity structured around land boundaries accessible by wagon, while deliberately preventing free river navigation.
b. Guerrilla Tactics: The caudillo state conducts warfare through the use of the montonera, a strategy resembling guerrilla operations rather than the “civilized” methods of war Sarmiento idealizes.
c. Personality Cult: This form of statehood relies heavily on political iconography and the establishment of a leadership cult centered on the figure of the caudillo.