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The Resource The republic of the living : biopolitics and the critique of civil society, Miguel Vatter

The republic of the living : biopolitics and the critique of civil society, Miguel Vatter

Creator
Author
Summary
This book takes up Foucault's hypothesis that liberal "civil society," far from being a sphere of natural freedoms, designates the social spaces where our biological lives come under new forms of control and are invested with new forms of biopower. In order to test this hypothesis, its chapters examine the critical theory of civil society--from Hegel and Marx through Lukacs, Adorno, Benjamin, and Arendt--from the new horizon opened up by Foucault's turn to biopolitics and its reception in recent Italian theory. Negri, Agamben, and Esposito have argued that biopolitics not only denotes new forms of domination over life but harbors within it an affirmative relation between biological life and politics that carries an emancipatory potential. The chapters of this book take up this suggestion by locating this emancipatory potential in the biopolitical feature of the human condition that Arendt called "natality." The book proceeds to illustrate how natality is the basis for a republican articulation of an affirmative biopolitics. It aims to renew the critical theory of civil society by pursuing the traces of natality as a "surplus of life" that resists the oppressive government of life found in the capitalist political economy, in the liberal system of rights, and in the bourgeois family. By contrast, natality offers the normative foundation for a new "republic of the living." Finally, natality permits us to establish a relation between biological life and contemplative life that reverses the long-held belief in a privileged relationship of thinking to the possibility of our death. The result is a materialist, atheological conception of contemplative life as eternal life.--Provided by publisher
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
First edition.
Extent
viii, 403 pages
Contents
  • The Tragedy of Civil Society and Republican Politics in Hegel
  • Living Labor and Self-Generative Value in Marx
  • Reification and Redemption of Bare Life in Adorno and Agamben
  • Natality, Fertility, and Mimesis in Arendt's Theory of Freedom
  • The Heroism of Sexuality in Benjamin and Foucault
  • Free Markets and Republican Constitutions in Hayek and Foucault
  • Biopolitical Cosmopolitanism: The Right to Have Rights in Arendt and Agamben
  • Bare Life and Philosophical Life in Aristotle, Spinoza, and Heidegger
  • Eternal Recurrence and the Now Revolution: Nietzsche and Messianic Marxism
Isbn
9780823256020
Instance
Label
The republic of the living : biopolitics and the critique of civil society
Title
The republic of the living
Title remainder
biopolitics and the critique of civil society
Statement of responsibility
Miguel Vatter
Creator
Author
Subject
Language
eng
Summary
This book takes up Foucault's hypothesis that liberal "civil society," far from being a sphere of natural freedoms, designates the social spaces where our biological lives come under new forms of control and are invested with new forms of biopower. In order to test this hypothesis, its chapters examine the critical theory of civil society--from Hegel and Marx through Lukacs, Adorno, Benjamin, and Arendt--from the new horizon opened up by Foucault's turn to biopolitics and its reception in recent Italian theory. Negri, Agamben, and Esposito have argued that biopolitics not only denotes new forms of domination over life but harbors within it an affirmative relation between biological life and politics that carries an emancipatory potential. The chapters of this book take up this suggestion by locating this emancipatory potential in the biopolitical feature of the human condition that Arendt called "natality." The book proceeds to illustrate how natality is the basis for a republican articulation of an affirmative biopolitics. It aims to renew the critical theory of civil society by pursuing the traces of natality as a "surplus of life" that resists the oppressive government of life found in the capitalist political economy, in the liberal system of rights, and in the bourgeois family. By contrast, natality offers the normative foundation for a new "republic of the living." Finally, natality permits us to establish a relation between biological life and contemplative life that reverses the long-held belief in a privileged relationship of thinking to the possibility of our death. The result is a materialist, atheological conception of contemplative life as eternal life.--Provided by publisher
Member of
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Vatter, Miguel E
Dewey number
306.2
Index
index present
LC call number
JC337
LC item number
.V37 2014
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Series statement
Commonalities
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Civil society
  • Biopolitics
Label
The republic of the living : biopolitics and the critique of civil society, Miguel Vatter
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier.
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent.
Contents
The Tragedy of Civil Society and Republican Politics in Hegel -- Living Labor and Self-Generative Value in Marx -- Reification and Redemption of Bare Life in Adorno and Agamben -- Natality, Fertility, and Mimesis in Arendt's Theory of Freedom -- The Heroism of Sexuality in Benjamin and Foucault -- Free Markets and Republican Constitutions in Hayek and Foucault -- Biopolitical Cosmopolitanism: The Right to Have Rights in Arendt and Agamben -- Bare Life and Philosophical Life in Aristotle, Spinoza, and Heidegger -- Eternal Recurrence and the Now Revolution: Nietzsche and Messianic Marxism
Control code
861678547
Dimensions
23 cm
Edition
First edition.
Extent
viii, 403 pages
Isbn
9780823256020
Isbn Type
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Lccn
2013050014
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia.
Media type code
  • n
System control number
(OCoLC)861678547
Label
The republic of the living : biopolitics and the critique of civil society, Miguel Vatter
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier.
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent.
Contents
The Tragedy of Civil Society and Republican Politics in Hegel -- Living Labor and Self-Generative Value in Marx -- Reification and Redemption of Bare Life in Adorno and Agamben -- Natality, Fertility, and Mimesis in Arendt's Theory of Freedom -- The Heroism of Sexuality in Benjamin and Foucault -- Free Markets and Republican Constitutions in Hayek and Foucault -- Biopolitical Cosmopolitanism: The Right to Have Rights in Arendt and Agamben -- Bare Life and Philosophical Life in Aristotle, Spinoza, and Heidegger -- Eternal Recurrence and the Now Revolution: Nietzsche and Messianic Marxism
Control code
861678547
Dimensions
23 cm
Edition
First edition.
Extent
viii, 403 pages
Isbn
9780823256020
Isbn Type
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Lccn
2013050014
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia.
Media type code
  • n
System control number
(OCoLC)861678547

Subject

Member of

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