The Work of Giorgio Agamben

AUTHOR APPROVED 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 Rancière 12 new essays, with a contribution by Agamben himself Gathering established and emerging scholars, this collection explores Agamben's thought from broad philosophical and literary concerns, underpinning its place within larger debates in continental philosophy. Contributors include Alexander García Düttmann, Deborah Levitt and Thanos Zartaloudis. Justin Clemens is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Melbourne. Nicholas Heron is a PhD candidate in the School of Communication and Culture at the University of Melbourne. Alex Murray is a lecturer in twentieth-century literature at the University of Exeter.

Justin Clemens is Associate Professor in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. 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.

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.