About this title: The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy's most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it. In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political ...
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780804732185ISBN:0804732183
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr
Date Published: 1998-04-01
ISBN-13:9780804732185ISBN:0804732183
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780804732185. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: STANFORD UNIV PR
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780804732185ISBN:0804732183
Description: New. One of Italy's most original philosophers aims to connect the problem of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultur... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN-13:9780804732178ISBN:0804732175
Description: Fair. 0804732175 Former library book. Student edition. CD NOT INCLUDED. Front cover is unaccounted for, back cover: light dirt, wear, fading, or curling of cover or spine. Good binding. NO apparent loose pages. Missing the first 8 pages of the introduction. No apparent writing or highlighting. jm. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN-13:9780804732178ISBN:0804732175
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using DHL or Royal Mail international mail WITH TRACKING NUMBER. Delivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). One of Italy’ s most original philosophers aims to connect the problem of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, ... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN-13:9780804732178ISBN:0804732175
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly shipped from our UK warehouse using Royal Mail International Priority mail. Heavier or more expensive books are shipped with a TRACKING NUMBER. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). One of Italy’ s most original philosophers aims to connect the problem of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural ... read more
"A great book to illuminate the way by which violence is inherently inevitable from the sovereign -especially state- practice. Departing from Carl Schmitt's exceptionalism, that is a kind of god-like practice to arbitrarily decide an exception (especially over liveable and unliveable life), and Michel Foucault's recent works on Biopolitics, that is political technology over life, Agamben set out that the fundamental activity of sovereignty is production of what he calls 'homo sacer' - those resulted from the exception practice of the sovereign that could be killed anytime, but not yet sacrificed. Horrifically, Agamben propechizes, nowadays, we are all actually a potential homo sacer."
"Agamben in a nutshell? Biopolitics is at the center not just of political modernity, but all politics. The politicization of bare life is an originary political event which secretly governs all modern ideologies. That is to say that the reduction of man to bare life, and his exposure to killing, is at the origin of politics. Agamben thus considers the intersection between the juridico-institutional and the biopolitical models of power, which he claims can never be separated. He probes this intersection from the origin of sovereignty, through the beginning of political modernity, until it reaches its apex in the concentration camp.
Simple enough?
I was initially very skeptical of this book, but I've since come around to believing that "bare life" can be a useful lens for political analysis. A couple things still make me uneasy about this book. First, I find his fixation on the originary to be a little perplexing in the context of what appears to be a deconstructive method at work. Also, while it's easy to read him otherwise, he occasionally slips into treating bare life simply as natural, biological life as if it can in reality be isolated. Dangerous.
A note on rating: this could have been four stars, but I'm trying to adjust my rating system. I give everything four stars."
"I read this for the class at Pitt I'm currently sitting in on, as a follow up to Foucault's History of Sexuality, Vol 1 and Society Must Be Defended. It was an attempt to flesh out the concept of 'biopolitics' but I think the term becomes less distinct when taken up by Agamben. Nevertheless, I think this is a great book, even though I find Agamben's thought a little less compelling than Foucault's, he seamlessly brings together much of the critical impulse of the last century of philosophy and makes the contemporary political situation seem horrific, catastrophic and yet rational in some very haunting ways. After reading Primo Levi's book this fall, Agamben's arguments on the concentration camp as the political paradigm of modernity touch a sensitive and dark place for me. I think that many of us would do well to dwell on these abysses of human life, and Agamben sets up a conceptual apparatus that makes this possible."
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