Terms of the Political: Community, Immunity,
Biopolitics presents a decade of thought about the
origins and possibilities of political theory from one
of contemporary Italy's most prolific and engaging
political theorists, Roberto Esposito. He has coined a
number of critical concepts in current debates about the
past, present, and future of biopolitics - from his work
on the implications of the etymological and
philosophical kinship of community (communitas) and
immunity (immunitas) to his theorizations of the
impolitical and the impersonal. Taking on interlocutors
from throughout the Western philosophical tradition,
from Aristotle and Augustine to Weil, Arendt, Nancy,
Foucault, and Agamben, Esposito announces the eclipse of
a modern political lexicon - "freedom," "democracy,"
"sovereignty," and "law" - that, in its attempt to
protect human life, has so often produced its opposite
(violence, melancholy, and death). Terms of the
Political calls for the opening of political thought
toward a resignification of these and other operative
terms-such as "community," "immunity," "biopolitics,"
and "the impersonal"-in ways that affirm rather than
negate life. An invaluable introduction to the breadth
and rigor of Esposito's thought, the book will also
welcome readers already familiar with Esposito's
characteristic skill in overturning and breaking open
the language of politics.
|
|