Giorgio Agamben
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Giorgio Agamben is an Italian philosopher who teaches at the University of Verona. He also holds a professorship at the European Graduate School, teaches at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris and at the University of Macerata in Italy, and has held visiting appointments at several American universities.
Work
In his central work "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life" (1998), Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben analyzes an obscure figure of Roman law that poses some fundamental questions to the nature of law and power in general. Under the Roman Empire, a man who committed a certain kind of crime was banned from society and all of his rights as a citizen were revoked. He thus became a "homo sacer" (holy man). In consequence, he could be killed by anybody - while his life on the other hand was deemed "sacred", so he could not be sacrificed in a ritual ceremony.
To a homo sacer, Roman law no longer applied, although he was still "under the spell" of law. He was excluded from law itself, while being included at the same time. This figure is the exact mirror image of the sovereign - a king, emperor, or president - who stands, on the one hand, within law (so he can be condemned, e.g. for treason, as a natural person) and outside of the law (since as a body politic he has power to suspend law for an indefinite time).
Since its origins, Agamben notes, law has had the power of defining what "pure life" is by making this exclusive operation, while at the same time gaining power over it by making it the subject of political control. The power of law to actively separate "political" beings (citizens) from "pure life" (bodies) has carried on from antiquity to modernity - from, literally, Aristotle to Auschwitz. In a daring but plausible move Agamben connects Greek political philosophy to the concentration camps of 20th century fascism, and even further, to detainment camps in the likes of Guantanamo Bay or Bari/Italy, where asylum seekers have been imprisoned in football stadiums. In these kinds of camps, entire zones of exception are being formed. Sovereign law makes it possible to create entire areas in which the application of the law itself is held suspended.
Agamben's philosophy draws from Michel Foucault as well as from Italian neo-marxist thought. He frequently cites authors as different as Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin. While sometimes being cryptic in his writings, in interviews he makes himself clear as a public thinker in Foucauldian tradition who is interested in social conflicts on a global scale.
In particular, he warns of a "generalization of the state of exception" through laws like the USA PATRIOT Act which would mean a permanent installment of martial law and emergency powers.
Agamben's work and ideas are frequently cited and used in Policy Debate. His work is particularily useful in the 2005-2006 topic which in part has to do with detention.
Bibliography
(Only English translations are listed here; there are translations of most writings to German, French, and Spanish. There also is an updated list of publications including translations to other languages at http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgioagamben.html).
- Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture (1992)
- Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience (1993)
- The Coming Community (1993)
- Idea of Prose (1995)
- Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998)
- The Man without Content (1999)
- The End of the Poem: Studies in Poetics (1999)
- Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy (1999)
- Means without Ends: Notes on Politics (2000)
- Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive (2002)
- The Open: Man and Animal (2004)
- State of Exception (2005)
- The Time That Remains: A Commentary On The Letter To The Romans (2005, forthcoming)
External links
- "Giorgio Agamben Faculty Website European Graduate School (http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgioagamben.html)"
- "[http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/3249 No to Bio-Political Tattooing By Giorgio Agamben, Le Monde, Saturday 10 January ]"
- "Interview with Giorgio Agamben – Life, A Work of Art Without an Author: The State of Exception, the Administration of Disorder and Private Life, German Law Journal, Vol. 5 (1 May 2004) (http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=437)"
- "Review of Stato di Eccezione (http://www.mail-archive.com/nettime-l@bbs.thing.net/msg00974.html)"de:Giorgio Agamben es:Giorgio Agamben fr:Giorgio Agamben