
Agamben and the Politics of Human Rights
Statelessness, Images, Violence
Edinburgh University Press
Published on 20. February 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-1-4744-0305-4 (ISBN)
Description
Human rights are in crisis today. Everywhere one looks, there is violence, deprivation, and oppression, which human rights norms seem powerless to prevent. This book investigates the roots of the current crisis through the thought of Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. Human rights theory and practice must come to grips with key problems identified by Agamben - the violence of the sovereign state of exception and the reduction of humanity to 'bare' life. Any renewal of human rights today must involve breaking decisively with the traditional coordinates of Western political thought and instead affirm a new understanding of life and political action.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
4 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
363 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-0305-4 (9781474403054)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2013
Edinburgh University Press
€24.49
Available for download

E-Book
05/2013
1st Edition
Edinburgh University Press
€0.00
Available for download
Persons
John Lechte is Emeritus Professor in Sociology at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is best know for his writing on French philosophers, Julia Kristeva and Georges Bataille and for his best selling Key Contemporary Thinkers (Routledge, 2006). He is co-editor of Agamben and the Politics of Human Rights: Statelessness, Images, Violence (EUP, 2015) and The Kristeva Critical Reader (EUP, 2003). His most recent book is The Human (Bloomsbury, 2020). Saul Newman is Professor in Political Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research is in continental and poststructuralist political and social theory, and contemporary radical politics. He is the author of: From Bakunin to Lacan (2001); Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought (2005); Unstable Universalities (2007); Politics Most Unusual (2008); The Politics of Postanarchism (2010); and Max Stirner (2011).
Author
Emeritus ProfessorMacquarie University
ProfessorGoldsmiths, University of London
Content
Preface; 1. Human Rights and Statelessness Today; 2. Human Rights in History; 3. Agamben and the Rise of 'Bare Life'; 4. Language, the Human and Bare Life: from Ungroundedness to Inoperativity; 5. Nihilism or Politics? An Interrogation of Agamben; 6. Politics, Power and Violence in Agamben; 7. Agamben, the Image and the Human; 8. Living Human Rights; Bibliography.