Description
Book SynopsisA compilation of the primary texts—by Foucault, Arendt, Agamben, Badiou, and other theorists—that laid the ground for contemporary thinking about biopolitics, or the relations between life and politics.
Trade Review“[A]n essential resource for graduate students and those new to the topic of biopolitics as well as a useful tool for the few with specialist knowledge.” -- Diana Stypinska * Sociological Review *
"This reader will be a landmark resource as scholarly engagement with biopolitics continues to expand in the coming years. It brings together in a single volume essential texts in the evolution of thinking about the biopolitical in the wake of the formative thought of Foucault and, later, Agamben. In addition, the selections are framed by a wonderfully nuanced and incisive introduction."—
Cary Wolfe, author of
Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame“This is an indispensable collection, both for how it exposes the limits of Foucault’s thought and for the ways it illuminates the dark junctures of life and the sciences of Aristotle’s ‘master art’ politics.” -- David W. Swain * Kritikon Litterarum *
"
Biopolitics: A Reader provides a comprehensive overview of this diverse and multidisciplinary field. Editors Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze demonstrate that biopolitics is not merely an academic fad, but rather, that it marks ‘the intersection, or perhaps reciprocal incorporation, of life and politics.’" -- Jay Daniel Thompson * Somatechnics *
“[A] comprehensive resource for newcomers, as well as those already familiar with biopolitics.” -- Rosalind G. Williams * Political Studies Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. Biopolitics: An Encounter / Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze 1
1. Right of Death and Power over Life / Michel Foucault 41
2. "Society Must Be Defended," Lecture at the
Collége de France, March 17, 1976 / Michel Foucault 61
3. The Perplexities of the Rights of Man / Hannah Arendt 82
4. Selections from
The Human Condition / Hannah Arendt 98
5. Introduction to
Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life / Giorgio Agamben 134
6. The Politicization of Life / Giorgio Agamben 145
7. Biopolitics and the Rights of Man / Giorgio Agamben 152
8. Necropolitics / Achille Mbembe 161
9. Necro-economics: Adam Smith and Death in the Life of the Universal / Warren Montag 193
10. Biopolitical Production / Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri 215
11. Biopolitics as Event / Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri 237
12. Labor, Action, Intellect / Paolo Virno 245
13. An Equivocal Concept: Biopolitics / Paolo Virno 269
14. The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies: Constitutions of Self in Immune System Discourse / Donna Haraway 274
15. The Immunological Transformation: On the Way to Thin-Walled "Societies" / Peter Sloterdijk 310
16. Biopolitics / Roberto Esposito 317
17. The Enigma of Biopolitics / Roberto Esposito 350
18. The Difficult Legacy of Michel Foucault / Jacques Rancière 386
19. From Politics to Biopolitics . . . and Back / Slavoj Zizek 391
20. What Is It to Live? / Alain Badiou 412
21. Immanence: A Life / Gilles Deleuze 421
Acknowledgment of Copyright 427
Index 429
