This volume constitutes the largest collection of writings by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben hitherto published in any language. With one exception, the fifteen essays, which reflect the wide range of the author s interests, appear in English for the first time. The essays consider figures in the history of philosophy (such as Plato, Plotinus, Spinoza, and Hegel) and twentieth-century thought (most notably Walter Benjamin, but also Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, the historian Aby Warburg, and the linguist J.-C. Milner). They also examine several general topics that have always been of central concern to Agamben: the relation of linguistic and metaphysical categories; messianism in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian theology; and the state and future of contemporary politics. Despite the diversity of the texts collected here, they show a consistent concern for a set of overriding philosophical themes concerning language, history, and potentiality.
Giorgio Agamben, an Italian philosopher and political theorist, teaches at the IUAV University in Venice and holds the Baruch Spinoza Chair at the European Graduate School. His most recent works available in English translation from Stanford University Press include "What is an Apparatus?" and Other Essays (2009), Nudities (2010), The Sacrament of Language(2011), and The Kingdom and the Glory (2011).
Editor's note Editor's introduction Part I. Language: 1. The thing itself 2. The idea of language 3. Language and history: linguistic and historical categories in Benjamin's thought 4. Philosophy and linguistics 5. Kommerell, or on gesture Part II. History: 6. Aby Warburg and the nameless science 7. Tradition of the immemorial 8. *Se: Hegel's absolute and Heidegger's Ereignis 9. Walter Benjamin and the demonic: happiness and historical redemption 10. The messiah and the sovereign: the problem of law in Walter Benjamin Part III. Potentiality: 11. On potentiality 12. The passion of facticity 13. Pardes: the writing of potentiality 14. Absolute immanence Part IV. Contingency: 15. Bartleby, or on contingency Notes Index of names.
"Agamben has been attracting attention recently in the English-speaking world, thanks to the increasing availability of his work in translation. This volume is indicative of Agamben's broad range of interests... Despite this range of interests, however, a sustained commitment to certain theoretical issues - particularly language and history - lends the volume a coherence... Daniel Heller-Roazen's introduction does a nice job of outlining the philosophical program that motivates these essays, and his translation in general is to be commended for its elegance. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers." - Choice
