Agamben's Critique Research Articles

Sovereign Exceptions and Sexual Autonomy in Heinrich von Kleist’s Betrothal in San Domingo

This article investigates how the concept of a state of exception and its dialectic relationship with the norm are negotiated in the German author Heinrich von Kleist’s Betrothal in San Domingo (1811), the story of two doomed lovers – a Swiss visitor named Gustav and a “mestiza” woman named Toni – set against the backdrop of the Haitian revolution. Drawing primarily upon Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben’s political thoughts as well as Alexander Weheliye’s critique of Agamben which, the former claims, has little “to say about racism, colonialism, and the world beyond fortress Europe” (64), I argue that the novella critically engages with the concept of exception and calls attention to its limitations but simultaneously offers an alternative conception to what political action may look like during a moment of intense conflict. The novella scrutinizes bio(necro)political theory’s placement of death at the center of our political thought, emphasizing instead the inadequacy of the universalization of the concept of “life,” particularly outside its Eurowestern perimeters. Through Weheliye, my analysis further suggests that Betrothal in San Domingo establishes Toni as an active, sovereign subject who, through actions of friendship and love, poses a significant challenge to the systems of exception and its underlying violent potentialities.

Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony

Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony

“Hominids with an Infected Brain” Engage in Viral Debate: Agamben and Žižek on the Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Human Relationships

“Hominids with an Infected Brain” Engage in Viral Debate: Agamben and Žižek on the Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Human Relationships

A parody of action: Politics and pantomime in Agamben's critique of Arendt

A parody of action: Politics and pantomime in Agamben's critique of Arendt

Filosofia, politica e società ai tempi della pandemia. Agamben e la «paranoia della ragione»

In this essay we will try to analyze the thought of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben on the pandemic. The aim of the work is twofold. On the one hand, we will try to demonstrate that Agamben’s positions on the pandemic are not to be understood as mere extemporaneous statements, but as integral parts of his philosophy. On the other hand, we will try to show how these positions are based on a deeply paranoid and anti-scientific vision, since Agamben believes that the effects of the epidemic have been exaggerated by the centers of power in order to create a “state of exception” that allows to crumble social life and to use the fear of poverty as a tool to dominate society. We will try to demonstrate that it is precisely starting from the critique of Agamben’s positions that it is possible to rethink a philosophy and a politic to come and a new reorganization of social and intimate relations between human beings.

Solidarity, Populism and COVID-19

The presence of COVID-19 has elicited a range of philosophical responses. The aim of this paper is to engage with the position advanced by Giorgio Agamben. Part of the critique of Agamben involves critique of populism. In response to populism the paper advances a different philosophical position this time ground in the concept of solidarity. The work of Hannah Arendt provides the basis for this response.

A fragile threshold: tracing Agamben’s reply to Derrida’s critique

ABSTRACTThe present work contends that Derrida’s critique of Agamben in The Beast and the Sovereign reveals a fundamental misconception of Agamben’s formulation of the notion of biopolitics. Agamben differentiates the term ‘biopolitics’ from biologism and argues instead that biopolitics ought to be viewed through the metaphysical inheritance of the ontological division already present in Aristotle’s articulation of the notion of life. Derrida’s position is one that refutes any such division. Through Agamben’s reading of Aristotle’s uses of the terms zoè and bios, and the distinction Aristotle makes between the simple fact of living (tou zen) and living well (tou eu zen), the article brings to light the fragility of the threshold while illustrating its operative function in the Aristotelian apparatus. Derrida contends that Agamben’s notion of biopolitics does not advance the Heideggerian discourse concerning the definition of man as animal rationale. The article argues that, on the contrary, for Agamben, Heidegger’s position remains biopolitical and does not overcome the metaphysical problem of presupposition. This article traces and unearths Agamben’s hidden reply to Derrida and draws a connection between Agamben’s formulation of a form-of-life and Deleuze’s conceptualisation of life as absolute immanence.

Being Bios in Zoe and Zoe in Bios: Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood as a Critique of Agamben’s Model of Biopolitics

Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood is a proposer of unexamined possibilities in Agamben that relates to the location of the human in modern democracies. Joining issue with Agamben about the constitution of modern man as the paradox of bios/zoe, this paper alludes to thick situations in the novel to establish that a person can exist as pure bios by surpassing de-politicization, and they also might deteriorate into pure zoe irrespective of the guaranteed political rights. The uncanny is, here, explained by mapping the doubled-edged subnational discourse of secessionism and discriminatory exclusion in Bitter Wormwood. Though the nation-state attempts a forcible inclusion of the Nagas through its exclusionary practices of legal suspension and enactment of counter-insurgency laws, the novel posits that the seceding Naga communities continue to exist in their spiritual sphere of bios, which is Naga consciousness. The same novel discusses the relegation of the politically entitled North-Easterners to a mere biological animal through the portrayal of their discrimination in New Delhi, the capital of India. Thus, Kire’s novel stands in as a critique of Agamben’s overestimation of law as the constituting element of biopolitics.

Kalpana Rahita Seshadri: HumAnimal: race, law, language

We recall Jacques Derrida’s critical engagement with Giorgio Agamben’s biopolitical framework from Seminar Twelve of The Beast & the Sovereign: Volume 1: ‘‘I don’t believe, for example, that the distinction between bios and zōē is a reliable and effective instrument, sufficiently sharp and, to use Agamben’s language, which is not mine here, sufficiently deep to get to the depth of this ‘[so-called] founding event’’’ (Derrida 2009, 326). This is a crucial element in Derrida’s critique of Agamben’s work on bio-politics. However for Kalpana Rahita Seshadri this critique needs to be subdued and reimagined in order to show how Derrida’s thinking itself underpins Agamben’s work on bio-politics. For as much as Derrida lambasts Agamben’s binary separation of bios and zōē, Seshadri’s HumAnimal: Race, Law, Language posits that a Derridean notion connects these two concepts, thus allowing Agamben to highlight and resist the ‘bare life’ resulting from bio-political mechanisms. Seshadri’s vibrant and lucid book (published in the University of Minnesota Press’ Posthumanities series) begins by setting out the risk in her thesis. In attempting ‘‘to discern the prevalence of what can be termed nonsovereign power, a power without right, as that which empties the legitimized power of disciplines and law (moral and juridical)’’ the risk which Seshadri faces is that she conceptualizes this ‘‘nonsovereign power’’ as ‘‘the temporal spacing that is constitutive of all named identities—what Derrida indicates as the ‘trace’ or the play of differance—thereby

Foucault's Overlooked Organisation: Revisiting his Critical Works

In this essay I propose a new reading of Michel Foucault's main thesis about biopower and biopolitics. I argue that organisation represents the neglected key to Foucault's new conceptualisation of power as something that is less political and more organisational. This unique contribution was lost even on his closest interlocutors. Foucault's work on power had a strong influence on organisation and management theory but interestingly not for the reasons I am proposing. In fact, although theorists in management and organisation studies have emphasised power in relation to discipline, control and subjectivity they have overlooked the transformative meaning of Foucault's organisation. His work on biopolitics has attracted opposition, too, as evidenced by the controversy sparked by Giorgio Agamben about Foucault's biopolitics. From Agamben's critique, it appears that Foucault's notions of politics and power do not allow a deconstruction of the violence of the concentration camp. However, a critical reading of Primo Levi's biographical narratives reveals the camp as a place where the prisoners’ ability to organise their daily lives secured survival. To make sense of Levi's revelation, I use John Dewey's notion of habits as forms of organisation and reconnect it to Foucault's organisation. A shared understanding of the objective conditions of human activity and experience highlights the similarities between Dewey's pragmatism and Foucault's pragmatic metaphysics. In the end, however, Foucault's metaphysical background has caught up with him, pushing him away from his own most radical proposal that organisation was the new form of power and the new substance of politics.

Fra konstituerende magt til destituerende magt:

The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s conception and critique of sovereignty has won him wide and well-deserved acclamation. In this article, however, it is argued that Agamben’s conception of sovereignty is somewhat misplaced, and, as a consequence, his positive political project of developing a ‘destituent power’ (as opposed to constituent power) is highly deficient in terms of construing a popular and viable political alternative. The critique of Agamben is developed through a close reading of Aristotle’s Politics and his notion of kurion. It is argued that Agamben’s flawed conception of sovereignty reemerges symptomatically in his extremely problematic reading of Aristotle’s Politics, and that a viable political alternative to both Agamben’s own project and the conception of politics that he criticizes can be developed through an alternative and closer reading of Aristotle.

The Letter and the Witness: Agamben, Heidegger, and Derrida

In Remnants of Auschwitz, Agamben introduces a particular conception of bearing witness to overcome the problems contained in an account of language that depends on the voice or the letter. From his earlier work, it is clear that his critique of the voice and the letter is not only directed to ancient and medieval metaphysics, but also concerns Heidegger's account of the voice and Derrida's account of the letter and writing. Yet, if Agamben is correct in claiming that bearing witness offers an alternative to Heidegger's voice and Derrida's letter, it is remarkable – a fact unnoticed in the available literature – that Agamben does not discuss how these conceptions of the voice and the letter are intrinsically connected to the problem of testimony for Heidegger as well as Derrida. To show how this lack of attention to bearing witness in Heidegger and Derrida affects Agamben's critique, this article proceeds as follows. First, we interpret Agamben's critique of Heidegger's conception of the voice and Derrida's conception of writing in terms of the presuppositional constitution of metaphysics. Second, we describe Agamben's concept of the witness and indicate how it offers an alternative to this presuppositional constitution of metaphysics. Finally, we show which role bearing witness plays in Heidegger's voice and Derrida's letter, and how our analysis presents a more precise version of Agamben's critique.

Embedding Agamben's Critique of Foucault: The Theological and Pastoral Origins of Governmentality

This article tackles Giorgio Agamben's critique of Michel Foucault's genealogy of governmentality in two ways: first, by presenting an alternative model of the relations between pastoral and theological economy and, second, by conducting a genealogy of the former as revealed in the state of exception, when canon law is suspended. Following the author's genealogy of oikonomia in the state of exception, he argues that politics and economy are distinct from one another by virtue of the fact that the primary relation of the latter is one of inclusion while that of the former is one of exclusion. Finally, the author traces three of oikonomia's prolific qualities in the operation of governmentality in civil society and of market economy: (i) its inclusiveness; (ii) the constant representation of the irreconcilability of law and authority; and (iii) its operation by accommodating to the ways of the governed.

Agamben, Postcoloniality, and Sovereignty in South Korea

AbstractThis paper examines modern Korean politics through the framework of Giorgio Agamben's theories of sovereign power, bare life, and the state of exception. Though his political analysis draws from the European history, we contend that the nature of his method attests to the possibility of analogical examples in non‐Western places. Thus, we argue that a postcolonial encounter with Agamben may enrich our understanding of sovereignty and political geography. In the Korean context, such an analysis needs to consider that sovereign power has been shaped by the itineraries of colonialism and empire. Korea's political space is deeply marked by the legacy of Japanese colonialism, the imperial interventions by the U.S., and the division of the peninsula. Thus, Korea offers a valuable lens through which to read Agamben's critique of sovereignty. Our paper offers such a reading to argue that a state of exception functions as the underlying nomos for postcolonial Korea.

Kenyatta's lament

This article provides an ethnographically and historically grounded critique of Giorgio Agamben's claim that oaths, like religion and law, reflect a universal experience of the failure of language to obligate people. I show how Agamben's critique of the oath only becomes relevant in the colonial Kenyan context after missionaries and administrators had facilitated the “unmaking” of Kikuyu ideologies of ritual efficacy. Specifically, it tracks how colonial administrators and Kikuyu elders came to understand the customary nature of elder authority through the representational and regulatory capacity that objects known as Tthathi were held to have. In the end, administrators and elders came to share an ideology linking ritual efficacy and elder authority, jointly participating in the naturalization of that relationship while failing to anticipate where it would lead.

FROM VOICE TO INFANCY giorgio agamben on the existence of language

The main concern of Agamben's work, prior to the Homo Sacer project, is how to understand the existence of or potentiality for language. Contemporary philosophy casts language as the unsayable presupposition of discourse. Agamben criticises this as an incomplete nihilism that remains within the horizon of metaphysics, and attempts to think the experience of language without an unsayable ground. I examine Agamben's critique of the role of the ineffable in the theory of the subject, and in the thought of Heidegger and Derrida. I contrast this with his account of infancy as an experience that fully assumes the groundlessness of language.

A Critical Pedagogy of Ineffability: Identity, education and the secret life of whatever

In this article I bring Giorgio Agamben’s notion of ‘whatever singularity’ into critical pedagogy. I take as my starting point the role of identity within critical pedagogy. I call upon Butler to sketch the debates around the mobilization of identity for political purposes and, conceding the contingent necessity of identity, then suggest that whatever singularity can be helpful in moving critical pedagogy from an emancipatory to a liberatory project (a distinction I take from Marx). To articulate whatever singularity I situate the concept within the work in which it appears, and then take a detour into Agamben’s general philosophical project. I propose that, for critical pedagogy to take whatever singularity seriously, it must uphold a respect for the ineffability of being, which entails in part the suspension of dialogue. To help flesh out what I mean by this proposal, I turn to a fragment of Lyotard’s philosophy and his critique of democracy. I conclude by addressing a pressing ontological critique of Agamben, which leads me to argue for a materialist appropriation of the figure of whatever singularity, one that is held in tension with ontological concerns of identity.

From Auschwitz to mandatory detention: biopolitics, race, and human rights in the Australian refugee camp

This article draws on Agamben's concept of homo sacer (bare-life) and his examination of the Muselmänner – the most de-humanised inhabitants of the Nazi concentration camp – to illuminate the ways that the policy and system of immigration detention in Australia signifies a continuation of the biopolitical paradigm that both created and supported the atrocity of Auschwitz. The article argues that the notion of race occupies a paradoxical position in the concept and body of the refugee in Australia today because while racism brings about and justifies the refugee's incarceration in the camp, the biopolitical processes of the camp create a subject within whom race becomes inevitably subsumed within and transcended by the ontology of bare-life. In this scheme, the question of human rights becomes ever more relevant but even less applicable. The article concludes with a critique of Agamben's key ideas as well as my application of them in light of Foucauldian and other interpretations of his work.

Animals in Biopolitical Theory: Between Agamben and Negri

I ANIMALS IN BIOPOLITICAL THEORY Michel Foucault's notion of 'biopolitics' has attained a renewed prominence in recent years through its reworking by, among others, key Italian philosophers Antonio Negri and Giorgio Agamben. As Foucault described it, modern politics is biopolitical insofar as it secures and wagers the very life of the human species. Both Negri and Agamben have incorporated a modified idea of biopolitics into their different diagnoses of our contemporary political situation: for Negri and his collaborator Michael Hardt, within the controversial notion of 'Empire' as a global system of power; and for Agamben, within the sovereign state of exception become the norm and the concomitant isolation of humanity's 'bare life.' But for all their attention to biology and life, and indeed the politicisation of such, they give little consideration to the subjection of animals within the regimes of biopower they critique. It will be important to ask whether and how their analyses of biopolitics might be elaborated in eco- and zoo-political terms. Others have traced with great care how Agamben's conception of biopolitics significantly (and perhaps--or not--faithfully) 'betrays' his inheritance of the concept from Foucault. (1) Negri's own critique of Agamben's use of the term indicates their significant philosophical differences over power and potentiality. A number of other thinkers, such as the Italian philosophers Paolo Virno and Roberto Esposito, (2) have offered their own analyses and criticisms, making for a highly contested and often inconsistent field, contrasting, for example, 'negative' and 'affirmative' biopolitics, and possible pathways between or beyond them--so much so that Virno complains that 'biopolitics' is at risk of becoming a 'fetish word' that obstructs rather than facilitates the analysis of the present. (3) Foucault introduced the concept while tracing the historical shift from the traditional power of sovereignty, which reserved for itself the right to take life or to let live, to the modern form of biopower, which took upon itself the goal to make live and thus only to let die. Important for Foucault was how the ability of certain political technologies (from agriculture to nuclear power) to stake the life of whole populations saw societies cross a 'threshold of biological modernity [seuil de modernite biologique]'. (4) This modern biopolitics, for Foucault, took as its task the regulation of the birth and mortality rates, disease and health, security and risk of a statistically defined population; it dovetailed with the 'anatomo-politics' by which capital disciplined the productive capacity of bodies. While Foucault traced the historical overlap and intertwining of these forms of power with that of classical sovereignty, he still understood them as fundamentally distinct in terms of object (population, body, legal subject) and facility (to nurture, to optimise, to repress). (5) Theorists have since traced biopower's expansion to cognitive, linguistic and corporal domains well beyond those Foucault described. But it has been less explored how modern apparatuses of government administer not only human life, but all life: seeds and crops, animal individuals and populations, ecosystems, the earth itself. Other species are subjected to manifold forms of power, violence and care--annexed, enclosed, culled, tracked, trained, bred, processed, exhibited, preserved, as well as experimented upon and industrially farmed for food--with the relevant disciplines of biological knowledge always at hand to refine these operations. In large part, scholarship on biopower has focussed on its biologisation of human politics and the legal abandonment of animalised social groups, from terror suspects to refugees. Yet a growing amount of work, drawing on discussion of 'the animal question', has explicitly thematised the position of nonhumans within biopower. For example, Rutherford and Luke have analysed the government of natural resources through a Foucauldian lens as 'environmentality'; (6) Dinesh Wadiwel has considered factory farms and laboratories as states of exception; (7) while more recently Nicole Shukin has theorised the biopolitical use of animal bodies within capitalism under the rubric of 'rendering'. …

The Vicissitudes of ‘Democracy to Come’: Political Community, Khôra, the Human

After beginning by situating the author's (possible) relation to Derrida's expression, ‘democracy to come’, the article proceeds from the position that Derrida's phrase is to be understood as part of a political intervention. Indeed, the inseparability of democracy and deconstruction confirms this. After setting out some of the pertinent features of ‘democracy to come’ – seen, in part, in the General Will – the notion of political community in the thought of Hannah Arendt is brought into question, if not deconstructed. Political community as presented by Arendt is seen to limit the inclusiveness of democracy. In the final section, the article suggests that Agamben's critique of the very structure of the nation-state opens the way for a renewal of the notion of the human in the ‘community to come’.