The Work of Giorgio Agamben: Law, Literature, Life

Giorgio Agamben has emerged, in the past five years, as one of the most important continental philosophers. This burgeoning popularity of his work has largely been confined to a study of the homo sacer series. Yet these later ‘political’ works have their foundation in Agamben’s earlier works on the philosophy of language, aesthetics and literature. From a philosophy of language and linguistics that leads to a broader theory of representation, Agamben develops a critical theory that attempts to explore the hiatuses and paradoxes that govern discursive practice across a broad range of disciplines. Gathering some of the most important established and emerging scholars to examine his body of work, this collection of essays seeks to explore Agamben’s thought from these broader philosophical and literary concerns, underpinning its place within larger debates in continental philosophy.This volume will be a valuable addition to the understanding and reception of this major thinker. Including a contribution by Agamben himself makes it essential reading for anyone interested in his work.Features:* the first volume to focus on Agamben’s early work on language and literature* includes established as well as up-and-coming scholars working in a variety of disciplines * includes a contribution by Agamben himself

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements; Notes on Contributors; The Enigma of Giorgio Agamben, Justin Clemens, Nicholas Heron, and Alex Murray; 1. K, Giorgio Agamben; 2. Integral Actuality: On Giorgio Agamben's Idea Of Prose, Alexander García Düttmann; 3. The role of the shifter and the problem of reference in Giorgio Agamben, Justin Clemens; 4. 'Its silent working was a delusion', Jessica Whyte; 5. Politics and Poetics of Divine Violence: On a Figure in Giorgio Agamben and Walter Benjamin, Arne De Boever; 6. Idea of poetry, idea of prose, Nicholas Heron; 7. The fading memory of homo non sacer, Anton Schütz; 8. Soulblind, or On Profanation, Thanos Zartaloudis; 9. Face to Face with Agamben; or, the Other in Love, Julian Wolfreys; 10. Beyond Spectacle and the Image: the poetics of Guy Debord and Agamben, Alex Murray; 11. Dismantling theatricality: aesthetics of bare life, Barbara Formis; 12. Notes on Media and Biopolitics: 'Notes on Gesture', Deborah Levitt. Index.

About the Author :
Justin Clemens is Associate Professor in Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on psychoanalysis, contemporary European philosophy and Australian art and literature. His recent books include What is Education? edited with A.J. Bartlett and The Afterlives of Georges Perec edited with Rowan Wilken. Nicholas Heron is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland. He is the editor, with Justin Clemens and Alex Murray, of The Work of Giorgio Agamben: Law, Literature, Life (EUP, 2008), and the author of a forthcoming monograph entitled Liturgical Power: Between Economic and Political Theology. Alex Murray is a lecturer in twentieth-century literature at the University of Exeter and publishes widely in nineteenth and twentieth century English Literature, as well as critical theory. He is the author of, most recently, Giorgio Agamben (2010) and is a founding editor of Parrhesia: a Journal of Critical Philosophy.

Review :

More than any other thinker, Giorgio Agamben shows us that philosophy is also a matter of style and politics a matter of poetics. This book explores the unexpected and illuminating paths that his work traces across the territories of law and literature, linguistics, dance or cinema, in search of a new idea and practice of the community. It offers an irreplaceable introduction to one of the most fascinating thinkers of our time.--Jacques Ranci?re