Giorgio Agamben Poer, La and the Uses of Criticism [Paperback]

Giorgio Agamben: Power, Law and the Uses of Criticismis a thorough engagement with the thought of the influential Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. It explores Agambens work on language, ontology, power, law and criticism from the 1970s to his most recent publications.

Introducing Agamben's work to a readership in legal theory, as well as in the humanities and social sciences more generally, Thanos Zartaloudis argues that an adequate understanding of Agamben's Homo Sacer project requires an attention to his earlier philosophical writings on language, ontology, power and time. It is through this attentive and creative analysis of Agamben's work that Zartaloudis here presents a rethinking of the ideas of justice and criticism.

1. Sacred Foundations: Mythologemes of Law and Power  2. From Transcendental Sovereignty to Neo-Governmentality: The Oikonomia of Power  3. Secular Sovereignty: A Gigantomachy Over a Void  4. The Biopolitical Nomos of Insignificant Lives  5. The Sacrament of Power and the Sacrament of Language  6. The Experience of Potentiality  7. The Idea of Justice

Thanos Zartaloudis researches and teaches at the School of Law, Birkbeck College of the University of London.