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Presents a list of books received for this issue of the journal "Philosophical Forum." Some the listed books are: "Open: Mind and Animal," by Giorgio Agamben; "Higher Education in the Making: Pragmatism, Whitehead, and the Canon," by George Allan; "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime," by Immanuel Kant; "Knowledge and Civilization," by Barry Allen; "Africa's Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization," by Messay Kebede and "John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy," by Hugh P. McDonald.

This paper examines modern Korean politics through the framework of Giorgio Agamben's theories of sovereign power, bare life, and the state of exception. Though his political analysis draws from the European history, we contend that the nature of his method attests to the possibility of analogical examples in non-Western places. Thus, we argue that a postcolonial encounter with Agamben may enrich our understanding of sovereignty and political geography. In the Korean context, such an analysis needs to consider that sovereign power has been shaped by the itineraries of colonialism and empire. Korea's political space is deeply marked by the legacy of Japanese colonialism, the imperial interventions by the U.S., and the division of the peninsula. Thus, Korea offers a valuable lens through which to read Agamben's critique of sovereignty. Our paper offers such a reading to argue that a state of exception functions as the underlying nomos for postcolonial Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many ways the Ethiopian famine of 1983-85 has served as a watershed with respect to humanitarian action. One of its lasting legacies has been the emergence of Band Aid and the subsequent increase in celebrity humanitarianism. A revisiting of the events of 1983-85 occurred in 2010 during a dispute in which it was alleged that a portion of the donations of Band Aid were spent on arms purchases. This paper takes this controversy as its starting point. It goes on to use the theoretical reflections of Giorgio Agamben to consider the dynamics that unfolded during the Ethiopian famine of 1983-85 and to analyse the underlying conceptualisation behind the emergence of Band Aid-type celebrity humanitarianism. The paper concludes with some wider thoughts on how the in essence antipolitical agenda of celebrity humanitarian action is transported into the everyday understanding of 'African disaster', resulting ultimately in the perpetuation of hegemonic control by the global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography, like much of social science, is witnessing a resurgence of interest in Michel Foucault's formation of biopower—the power to make live and foster life. This paper seeks to engage with this interest by staging a dialogue between the work of Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow on the one hand and that of Giorgio Agamben on the other. I propose that, while Rose and Rabinow provide a diagnostic for our emerging geographies of “life itself” and outline allied forms of political citizenship known as “biosociality” or “biological citizenship”, it is Agamben who enables us to consider the limit figures to this form of political inclusion. To draw out these limit figures I focus on recent debates surrounding end-of-life decisions and provide examples from the Dignity in Dying campaign and the Not Dead Yet movement. Throughout, I situate this paper within recent debates on posthumanism and the posthuman in geography. In doing so I effectively ask: why, in our seemingly posthuman(ist) times, does much of Western politics seek to decide on the form, the right and, inevitably, the limit of human beings? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background of the argument Joris Vlieghe develops in this article is the idea, proposed by neopragmatic scholars, that a way of aptly dealing with the societal issues that have come about in the wake of a global ecological crisis consists of engaging in practices of study. This involves thinking, a concept that needs to be reconsidered from an educational perspective. Hence the article turns to John Dewey's classical pragmatic account of thinking, so as to show that this Deweyan approach could be enriched by reading it together with Giorgio Agamben's reflections on this matter. This allows for rendering with greater accuracy certain aspects of thinking that unearth its properly educational meaning: that thinking is necessarily a collective endeavor that is driven by an interruption of our habitual ways of living together with a view toward envisaging truly alternative futures. Thinking is a risky experience in which the foundational subject disappears. Such a view allows, furthermore, for the reconceptualization of thinking in a posthumanist key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giorgio Agamben argues that Christian thought provides the paradigm of modern governmental power, which reinforces mundane government by investing it with glory. Agamben claims that Dionysius the Areopagite exemplifies this structure; in his view, Dionysian negative theology serves to sacralize ecclesiastical power. In response, I argue that Dionysius desacralizes every authority, affirming that some things are sacred even as he subjects that affirmation to thoroughgoing critique. Against both dogmatic adherence and pure profanation, Dionysius models a politics that draws on the power of the sacred while holding it open to unpredictable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The work of Giorgio Agamben relies heavily on two rather opaque notions: the messianic and the irreparable. This essay is devoted to an analysis of the latter. After surveying the existing literature, I take my cue from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's prison letters and prepare the way for my own analysis of Agamben's irreparable. In the final part of the essay, I compare the irreparable with Agamben's use of Benjamin's thought of something unforgettable. I understand the role of the irreparable in this light, since, for Agamben, it means the chance of something given up by language, something given up altogether, and as such serves as entry to the paradigmatic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the concepts and methodology of political theory by philosopher Michel Foucault and how it has influenced the work of contemporary political theorists Giorgio Agamben and Ian Hacking. Topics discussed by the author include the use of self-reflectiveness for critical political theory, comparison of their engagements with the Foucauldian concepts and methods, and Foucault's empiricism of the epistemological contextualism with which he counters transcendental epistemology.

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When compulsory purchase for urban regeneration is combined with a sporting mega-event, we have an archetypal example of what Giorgio Agamben called the 'state of exception'. Through a study of compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) on the site of the Athletes' Village for Glasgow's 2014 Commonwealth Games, we expose CPOs as a classed tool mobilised to violently displace working class neighbourhoods. In doing so, we show how a fictionalised mantra of 'necessity' combines neoliberal growth logics with their obscene underside-a stigmatisation logic that demonises poor urban neighbourhoods. CPOs can be used progressively, for example to abrogate the power of slum landlords for social democratic ends, yet with the increasing urbanisation of capital they more often target marginalised neighbourhoods in the pursuit of land and property valorisation. The growing use of CPOs as an exceptional measure in urbanisation, we argue, requires urgent attention in urban political struggles and policy practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers author's insights regarding the views of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben regarding messianic fulfillment. Topics discussed include the relationship between children and playing, the role infancy and childhood to profanation, and the importance of messianic vocation for children. Other topics discussed include the book "The Open: Man and Animal," differences between animal and human life, and the key contribution of Greek philosopher Aristotle for Agamben philosophy.

In this collection of critical essays, Dominick LaCapra, with characteristic verve, takes on a variety of authors who have addressed issues relating to intellectual history, history generally, violence, trauma, and the relation between the human and the animal. LaCapra offers two types of criticism-of historians for ignoring or misappropriating theory, and of theorists for engaging in 'theoreticism,' a theorizing that rides roughshod over historical specificity and context. The present essay focuses on LaCapra's discussion of the theoreticism of the critical theorists Giorgio Agamben, Eric L. Santner, and Slavoj Žižek, and in particular on their and LaCapra's attempts to engage with the 'issue of the postsecular.' Although Agamben, Santner, and Žižek highlight some important and provocative issues, this brand of critical theory provides too limited a base for coming to an understanding of current debates over the relation between religion and secular perspectives. Instead, one must approach 'postsecularity' with attentiveness to the larger 'secularization debate,' and to the way the term postsecular is used by such writers as Jürgen Habermas and John Milbank. LaCapra rightly draws attention to the recent emergence of a discourse of 'the postsecular.' Both the term and the concept now cry out for a deeper, more critical, and more historical examination than has so far been attempted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers philosophical views of Giorgio Agamben, Italian political philosopher on Aristotle, Greek philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher and Immanuel Kant, German philosopher. It mentions that in Aristotle philosophy, the concept of potentiality is not the relation point where Agamben claimed rather it occurs in the Aristotle's concept of efficient causality. It further informs that Agamben had borrowed his basic vocabulary from Hegel and also does not explain his usage of words or the specificities.

In this article the author discusses political theory in accordance with the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, Italian political philosopher. It emphasizes on the book "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life," by Agamben which discusses the immigration camp as the fundamental political paradigm in the Western countries. It states that in this book, Agamben analyzes an obscure figure of Roman law that poses some fundamental questions to the nature of law and political power. It mentions about the Nazi camp that features Homo Sacer, who are the people, committed certain kind of crime and under the Roman law was banned from the society and from all citizen rights.

In this commentary I would like to offer some reflections on the Deleuzian concept of 'assemblage' (agencement) from the perspective of my grounding in 'governmentality studies' and, secondly, on the latter's central concern with the concept of the security 'apparatus' (dispositif). I would like to suggest that the two be thought of dialectically, both as concepts and as actually-existing things in the world. After outlining my use to date of these concepts, and their deployment in my research into colonial India, I will counterpoise Giorgio Agamben's and Giles Deleuze's reflections on Michel Foucault's use of the term dispositif/apparatus. Deleuze's obvious and acknowledged indebtedness to Foucault's work, but his explicit re-rendering of the Foucauldian interest in order with the Deleuzian conceptualisation of dis-order, will be used to conclude with some methodological suggestions regarding how Deleuze and Foucault, agencement and dispositif, assemblages and apparatuses, can and should be thought together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis on the political theory of Giorgio Agamben. Authors argue that the focus on determinate spaces excludes the real spatializing work of the exception which is topological. The comparison of Giorgio Agamben's and Carl Schmitt's view of the state of exception is offered. They analyzed the state of exception based on governmentality and materiality. Authors propose to seize the potential of emergence, the potential of topological transformation, to determine the apparent fixity of current geometries of power.