Against the Grain

Agamben on State Power and “Bare Life”

How foundational are violence and coercion to Western sovereign authority? According to Giorgio Agamben, states of emergency have become not the exception but the rule, and the individual has been reduced by state power to “bare life” to an alarming degree. Adam Kotsko explains and interprets the Italian theorist’s influential ideas.

For more details and higher-quality audio, visit againstthegrain.org.

Leave a Reply