Agamben and Indifference: A Critical Overview

by William Watkin Professor of Contemporary

Overview

Since the publication of Homo Sacerin 1995, Giorgio Agamben has become one of the world’s most revered and controversial thinkers. His ideas on our current political situation have found supporters and enemies in almost equal measure. His wider thoughts on topics such as language, potentiality, life, law, messianism and aesthetics have had significant impact on such diverse fields as philosophy, law, theology, history, sociology, cultural studies and literary studies.

Yet although Agamben is much read, his work has also often been misunderstood. This book is the first to fully take into account Agamben’s important recent publications, which clarify his method, complete his ideas on power, and finally reveal the role of language in his overall system. William Watkin presents a critical overview of Agamben’s work that, through the lens of indifference, aims to give a portrait of exactly why this thinker of indifferent and suspensive legal, political, ontological and living states can rightfully be considered one of the most important philosophers in the world today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783480081
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/06/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Watkin is professor of contemporary literature and philosophy at Brunel University, UK. He is the author of In the Process of Poetry: The New York School and the Avant-Garde (Bucknell UP, 2001), On Mourning: Theories of Loss in Modern Literature (Edinburgh UP, 2004) and The Literary Agamben (Continuum, 2010).

Table of Contents

Introduction / Part One: The Archaeology of Indifference / 1. The Signature of All Things: Paradigms and Signatures / 2. Philosophical Archaeology / 3. The Language of Death: Indifferent Difference as Such in Hegel and Heidegger / 4. The Coming Community: An Essay on Indifferent Singularities / 5. Towards a Deictic Ontology or Being-thus As-such / Part Two: Difference and Indifference / 6. Derrida and Agamben: Différance Makes Indifference Communicable / 7. Potentiality, Virtuality and Impotentiality: Agamben and Deleuze / 8. The Two Bartlebies: Deleuze, Agamben and Immanence / Part Three: The Indifference of Indifference: Politics, Language, Life / 9. Homo Sacer and the Politics of Indifference / 10. The Kingdom and the Glory: The Articulated Inoperativity of Power / 11. The Sacrament of Language: Language as Communicability / Conclusion: The End of Lying and the Birth of Living / Threshold of Suspension / Bibliography / Index

Editorial Reviews

'One of the most powerful and thoughtful introductions to Giorgio Agamben’s thought that I have read in a long time. This is a perfect sequel to Watkin’s groundbreaking The Literary Agamben. We untangle Agamben’s philosophy by delineating his concepts and methods in opposition to those of Derrida and Deleuze. Watkins guides you as no one does, and all the while provides an accessible road-map.'

Jean-Michel Rabaté

'One of the most powerful and thoughtful introductions to Giorgio Agamben’s thought that I have read in a long time. This is a perfect sequel to Watkin’s groundbreaking The Literary Agamben. We untangle Agamben’s philosophy by delineating his concepts and methods in opposition to those of Derrida and Deleuze. Watkins guides you as no one does, and all the while provides an accessible road-map.'

Jean-Michel Rabate

The multifaceted and penetrating work of Giorgio Agamben deserves a profound study, in particular his critique of the philosophy of difference, and that of indifference which emerges from it. Watkin engages in a clear examination of the organizing concepts of Agamben and their elucidating power for all philosophy, as well as an analysis of their applications in various diverse domains (the “signatures” or names of reference of the modern tradition, the archaeology of indifference, etc.). Watkin's sharp lens is indispensable for those who want to grasp a central aspect of contemporary philosophy that has not ceased to trouble it since Nietzsche and Heidegger. It is an excellent book on a great contemporary philosopher.

Francois Laruelle

William Watkin's book is certainly an illuminating and profound reading of my entire work. But it is, at the same time, much more than that. According to Walter Benjamin's idea that theory can today only be written in the form of interpretation, Watkin has produced a work of astonishing originality, which any attempt to read twentieth-century philosophy will be obliged to confront.

Valeria Dani

William Watkin's book is certainly an illuminating and profound reading of my entire work. But it is, at the same time, much more than that. According to Walter Benjamin's idea that theory can today only be written in the form of interpretation, Watkin has produced a work of astonishing originality, which any attempt to read twentieth-century philosophy will be obliged to confront.

Giorgio Agamben