Homo Sacer: A Blog Series

As Agamben’s flagship project reaches completion, scholars reflect on its significance.

All nine volumes of the Homo Sacer series, from the inaugural Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life to the final installment, The Use of Bodies published earlier this year. (Two of the nine volumes were published in English by fellow university presses—The State of Exception by University of Chicago Press and Remnants of Auschwitz by MIT Press).

Leading Italian philosopher and political theorist, Giorgio Agamben is perhaps best known for his Homo Sacer project, composed over two decades and launched with the publication of the volume that gave the series its name, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Recruited by Werner Hamacher for Stanford University Press’s Meridian Series, where it appeared in English in 1998, the book signaled a new direction for contemporary political thought.

To celebrate the publication of its ninth and final volume, The Use of Bodies, in English translation, Stanford University Press is hosting a blog roundtable to reflect on the stakes of the series as a whole. The posts that follow will approach Agamben’s work from a variety of intellectual perspectives, approaches that echo the interdisciplinary resonances of this vast and important undertaking.

 

Tuesday

The Yields of a Digressive Style

Through surprising detours, Agamben plumbs Western thought to reveal unexpected insights.

by ADAM KOTSKO

 

Wednesday

THEME AND VARIATION

Homo Sacer in retrospect.

by KEVIN ATTELL

 

Wednesday

Whither Topology

On structure and order in Homo Sacer.

by PETER FENVES

 

Thursday

I Can See Your Halo

Marginal notes on Homo Sacer.

by DAVID KISHIK

 

Thursday

Giorgio Agamben’s Political Paradigm

Notes on Stasis.

by ALBERTO TOSCANO

 

Friday

Superpolitically Apolitical

A conclusion to the Homo Sacer project.

by LORENZO CHIESA