Femina Sacra Beyond Borders: Agamben in the 21st Century

This paper seeks to engage Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer (1995) on two fronts: the state of exception beyond the state, and woman as femina sacra—she who cannot be sacrificed but can be raped or killed with impunity. Drawing on both Hann Arendt and feminist literature, homo sacer is expanded to the idea of femina sacra as bare life and sexual object by tying it to the recent controversy known as "GamerGate" to illustrate how biopower exists beyond state borders in the borderless realm of the internet, and how it both challenges and gives voice to political power.