Catastrophe and Redemption: The Political Thought of Giorgio Agamben

Contents

Contents acknowledgments vii introduction: On Catastrophe and Redemption 1 Katechon, antichrist, Messiah 7 Flowers and Chains 10 Chapter Outline 15 1. the Politics of Life 19 agamben and Foucault: On Biopolitics, ancient and Modern 25 Biopolitics and Sovereignty 28 Biopolitical Being 31 the Rights of Bare Life 35 hoping Merely Out of Stupidity 42 2. Politics at the Limits of the Law: On the State of exception 47 the State of exception 52 Carl Schmitt: the Paradox of Sovereignty 54 Presupposition and the Problem of application 59 the State of “Nature” 63 Challenging the Normalization of the exception? 68 3. if this is a Man: Life after auschwitz 73 the Remnant Shall Be Saved 76 the Danger 78 Where Danger is, Grows the Saving Power also 87 vi / CONteNtS 4. “i Would Prefer Not to”: Bartleby, Messianism, and the Potentiality of the Law 97 the Law is a Dry Canal 102 aristotle and the Origins of Sovereignty 104 Past Contingent 110 Bartleby as Messiah? 119 5. a New Use: On the Society of the Spectacle and the Coming Politics 123 Paying Pilgrimage to the Commodity Fetish 129 the eclipse of Use and the “Dialectical Salvation of the Commodity” 132 a New Use for the Self: the Global Petty Bourgeoisie and the Coming Community 144 We are Saved When We No Longer Want to Be 150 Conclusion: Unemployment and the Ungovernable 159 Notes 167 Bibliography 199 index 211 ...