This anthology collects the texts that defined the concept of biopolitics, which has become so significant throughout the humanities and social sciences today. The far-reaching influence of the biopolitical-the relation of politics to life, or the state to the body-is not surprising given its centrality to matters such as healthcare, abortion, immigration, and the global distribution of essential medicines and medical technologies.

Michel Foucault gave new and unprecedented meaning to the term "biopolitics" in his 1976 essay "Right of Death and Power over Life." In this anthology, that touchstone piece is followed by essays in which biopolitics is implicitly anticipated as a problem by Hannah Arendt and later altered, critiqued, deconstructed, and refined by major political and social theorists who explicitly engaged with Foucault's ideas. By focusing on the concept of biopolitics, rather than applying it to specific events and phenomena, this Reader provides an enduring framework for assessing the central problematics of modern political thought.

Contributors. Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Alain Badiou, Timothy Campbell, Gilles Deleuze, Roberto Esposito, Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, Michael Hardt, Achille Mbembe, Warren Montag, Antonio Negri, Jacques Ranciere, Adam Sitze, Peter Sloterdijk, Paolo Virno, Slavoj Zizek

A compilation of the primary texts - by Foucault, Arendt, Agamben, Badiou, and other theorists - that laid the ground for contemporary thinking about biopolitics, or the relations between life and politics.

About the Author

Timothy Campbell is Professor of Italian Studies and Chair of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of Wireless Writing in the Age of Marconi.

Adam Sitze is Assistant Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought at Amherst College. He is the author of The Impossible Machine: A Genealogy of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Reviews
"[A]n essential resource for graduate students and those new to the topic of biopolitics as well as a useful tool for the few with specialist knowledge." -- Diana Stypinska * Sociological Review *
"This reader will be a landmark resource as scholarly engagement with biopolitics continues to expand in the coming years. It brings together in a single volume essential texts in the evolution of thinking about the biopolitical in the wake of the formative thought of Foucault and, later, Agamben. In addition, the selections are framed by a wonderfully nuanced and incisive introduction."-Cary Wolfe, author of Before the Law: Humans and Other Animals in a Biopolitical Frame
"This is an indispensable collection, both for how it exposes the limits of Foucault's thought and for the ways it illuminates the dark junctures of life and the sciences of Aristotle's 'master art' politics." -- David W. Swain * Kritikon Litterarum *
"Biopolitics: A Reader provides a comprehensive overview of this diverse and multidisciplinary field. Editors Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze demonstrate that biopolitics is not merely an academic fad, but rather, that it marks 'the intersection, or perhaps reciprocal incorporation, of life and politics.'" -- Jay Daniel Thompson * Somatechnics *
"[A] comprehensive resource for newcomers, as well as those already familiar with biopolitics." -- Rosalind G. Williams * Political Studies Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822353355
Author Timothy Campbell
Format Paperback
Page Count 456
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 635g