Description
Book SynopsisWhile the governance of human existence is organised ever-increasingly around life and its potential to proliferate beyond all limits, much critical reflection on the phenomenon is underpinned by considerations about the very negation of life, death. The challenge is to construct an alternative understanding of human existence that is truer to the complexity of the present, biopolitical moment.
Palladino responds to the challenge by drawing upon philosophical, historical and sociological modes of inquiry to examine key developments in the history of biomedical understanding of ageing and death. He combines this genealogy with close reflection upon its implications for a critical and effective reading of Foucault's and Deleuze's foundational work on the relationship between life, death and embodied existence.
Biopolitics and the Philosophy of Death proposes that the central task of contemporary critical thought is to find ways of coordinating different ways of th
Trade Review
Palladino skates effortlessly over historical, sociological, and philosophical literature in a book perhaps best described as a porous philosophy of biology ... [It provides] an innovative and engaging account of the development of biomedical perspectives on the aging process through the mid-twentieth century. * Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences *
Palladino provides a highly sophisticated and original analysis of ageing and death in the context of modern biopolitics. His triangulation of Foucault, Deleuze and biogerontological conceptions of death makes a major contribution to the field of biopolitical studies. This book should be read by anyone interested in these debates. * Catherine Mills, Associate Professor Centre for Human Bioethics School of Philosophical, Historical & International Studies, Monash University, Australia *
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Evental figures and questions of method Chapter 2: Ageing and the molecular way of life Chapter 3: The evolutionary biology of ageing and death Chapter 4: Molecularizing the biology of ageing and death Chapter 5: Forging the future Chapter 6: Life, death and philosophy Chapter 7: The arts of living and dying Conclusion Notes Works cited Index
