Search

Here I introduce the transsecular concept for the development of a politics of literature in a syncretic, transsecular society. If literature, as per Jacques Rancière (literature as a contradictory discourse in La Parole muette: Essai sur les contradictions de la littérature) and Michel Foucault (madness as principle of social partition in Folie, langage, littérature, 2019) is a laboratory of experiences that makes it possible to think outside of binary logic, through non-dialectic contradiction, which does not transform the dual into the univocal. Then, the transsecular approach aims to articulate these identity differences based on a principle of "hospitable" reading, a transsecular hermeneutics, which is in the very origin of the texts that form literary traditions. This hospitable principle of reading proposes a hermeneutics of literary texts as ethics of the care of the self. The transsecular approach is thus based on a synctretic hermeneutics of texts of both secular and religious origin, which live alongside and set different cultural traditions to dialog with each other, following the model of literature that is by nature really transtextual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the reception of the Foucauldian notion of governmentality in Roberto Esposito's thought by taking into account the Italian translation of Foucault's lectures of 1977 and 1978 at the Collège de France. First, the different contexts of reception of these lectures are presented, in particular the Anglo-Saxon studies of governmentality and the crisis of Italian Marxism in the late 1970s. Secondly, Foucault's position in his courses of these years is analyzed from the perspective of the opposition between Machiavellianism and anti-Machiavellianism, precisely in view of the Italian reception. Finally, this paper analyses the reception of the notion of governmentality by Roberto Esposito in his 1980 work La politica e la storia. The paper shows the importance of this early reception of Foucault's lessons regarding the formation of the Italian biopolitical current and its specificities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to engage in a critical review of Roberto Esposito's biopolitical account by including a thoroughgoing interrogation of racism and white supremacy through the lens of Black affect studies. It is argued that both white supremacy studies and Esposito's framework could work side-by-side in ways that are productive for affirmative educational biopolitics. In particular, the analysis highlights two insights: first, engagement with white supremacy as a biopolitical category—in particular, white supremacy as an affective embodiment—is essential for the ability of education to interrogate the racialization of Black bodies; and, second, attentiveness to Black affect in biopolitical accounts is crucial for the decentering of white supremacy in education. These insights broaden the conceptual parameters of educational biopolitics by foregrounding the affective biopower of racism and white supremacy as central to affirmative educational biopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O presente texto tem como objetivo compreender a relação do homo oeconomicus e o paradigma imunitário. O tema é problematizado a partir do pressuposto do paradigma da imunização com os elementos do homo oeconomicus. No intuito de compreender, utilizou-se como fundamentação teórica, os pensamentos de Roberto Esposito e Michel Foucault. Por essa razão, tem-se como problema de pesquisa: em que medida o paradigma da imunização em Roberto Esposito relaciona-se com o homo oeconomicus em Michel Foucault? Em relação aos objetivos, tem-se: o geral, em compreender a problemática. Enquanto, os objetivos específicos são: (1) Identificar o conceito dos elementos da biopolítica em Michel Foucault; (2) Analisar o paradigma da imunização em Roberto Esposito; (3) Discutir a relação do homo oeconomicus de Foucault com os elementos da imunização em Esposito. Sendo assim, a pesquisa, constitui-se como uma revisão bibliográfica, articulada com os principais livros dos autores do referencial teórico: de Roberto Esposito, temos “Communitas” (1998), “Immunitas” (2002) e "Bios'' (2004). Além disso, de Michel Foucault: “Segurança, Território e População” (2008) e “Nascimento da Biopolítica” (2004). Espera-se como resultado a relação do homo oeconomicus com os elementos do paradigma imunitário, nesse caso, com o direito como imunidade e uma biopolítica afirmativa.

Este trabajo tiene un doble objetivo. En primer lugar, presentar dos paradigmas elaborados por Roberto Esposito y por Eligio Resta para pensar (con) otra racionalidad jurídica: derecho impersonal y derecho viviente. En segundo lugar, situar la genealogía de ambos paradigmas en las reflexiones suscitadas en el primer cuarto del siglo XX con Simone Weil y el debate Hans Kelsen-Eugen Ehrlich. La idea principal es plantear una singularidad jurídica en el interior de la Italian Theory.

Copyright of Contrastes: Revista Internacional de Filosofia is the property of Contrastes: Revista Internacional de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The challenging concept of legal person has evolved significantly over the centuries, rooted in the ancient Roman notion of persona as a mask or character that conferred different legal and social roles on individuals (as well super-human entities). In modern times, the concept of legal person seems even to expand beyond the human sphere to encompass a wide range of entities, including animals, artificial intelligence (AI) and the environment. This article explores the complexities and dilemmas surrounding this evolving concept, and examines the challenges and opportunities presented by the extension of the legal persona to new frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article approaches the ideational texture of the volume focused on Instituting Thought. Three Paradigms of Political Ontology (2021), by the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito. The interest (here) denotes, on the one hand, the essential reading of R. Esposito’s comments on three paradigms of political ontology – destitute (Heidegger) – constitute (Deleuze) – institutive (Lefort and, implicitly, Esposito), by offering a contextualized debate on the perspectives, on the updates and transgressions of political ontology. From a punctual point of view, the reference is made to post-foundational political ontology (Oliver Marchart, 2007), to the landmarks of neo-ontology (Carsten Strathausen, 2009 – here, with a debate converted into dialogue – Roberto Esposito on C. Strathausen and Bruno Bosteels on R. Esposito), as well as on radical democracy, the latter theoretically (re)articulated in the volume coordinated by Lars Tønder and Lasse Thomassen (2005); on the other hand, it is reaffirmed that everything is political ontology! – a statement that we will deduce – via R. Esposito – from the connection operated between political action and the hierarchies of political philosophies, in general, through the intensive act of awareness of the named reality.

The article intends to present the statute of the community from an analysis of aspects of the thought of Georges Bataille and Roberto Esposito. First, to bring the notions of contagion and the constructions of its interdictions in Bataille's thought closer to Esposito's conception of immunitas. Soon after, we reconnect our reading to the place where Esposito reserved for Bataille in his research, that is, the archeology of thought about community and the possibility of rethinking the common space. The methodology applied here comprises the combination of the bibliographic analysis method with the comparative one. In conclusion, it is intended to demonstrate the theological-political reactions that unify and reduce common life to a defense of mere human biological survival. Also, starting from an ontological deconstruction of the western identity, we propose an opening to contemporary thoughts about the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses an inherent paradox in contemporary conceptualisations of community as a challenge to diaconia. Logics of protection separate insiders from outsiders, producing a fundamental antagonism between those who belong to the community and those who threaten it. During pandemics, this logic is exacerbated. When contagion threatens all, even the community needs to be protected from itself. Immunitarian defences are required for the safety of all community members. However, measures implemented to ensure immunity can also harm people's mental and somatic health. This paradox presents ethical and practical challenges for inclusive justice, including diaconia. Concerning this dilemma, the article draws on Roberto Esposito's reframing of community and immunitarian defence. Esposito argues that immunitarian mechanisms must promote tolerance of otherness through openness to its presence within. I suggest that this openness can be seen as a fundamental ontological vulnerability shared by all living creatures. Learning from recent contributions within vulnerability studies and feminist and trauma theologies, I employ Tony Addy's concept of conviviality as a model for diaconal community building, seeking to elucidate the relevance of Esposito's thinking to postpandemic diaconal practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'immunity' is the central notion in Roberto Esposito's assessments of modern politics. Understanding modern politics from Esposito's perspective is synonymous with understanding the concept of immunity. However, if one looks at modern political theory, one finds that a number of concepts such as social contract, state/sovereignty, person, property, and liberty stand out as central concepts rather than a single concept. This article argues that these concepts, which have different meanings, are part of one and the same logic, and that it is possible to conceptualise this logic around 'immunity.' For this reason, this article proposes, first, to consider the concept of 'immunity' as a concept that expresses the logic to which these concepts belong. Second, it argues that the concept of immunity allows us to see the continuity between modern politics and contemporary political tendencies. Based on this argument, the article claims that Esposito increases the explanatory power of Michel Foucault's understanding of biopolitics, which is insufficient to explain the logic of the transition from life-protective to life-hostile activities in politics. The article concludes that 'immunity' provides a conceptual key to understanding the possibility of totalitarianism in biopolitical times from Nazism to the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resenha do livro de Roberto Esposito, La politica e la storia: Machiavelli e Vico.

Despite their common core in statistics, insurance and epidemiology propel two different forms of solidarity. In insurance, the collective is a source of protection, thanks to the pooling of risks; in epidemics by contrast, the group remains the source of danger for the individual. The aim of this paper is to highlight the conceptions of community and solidarity at play in epidemics in contradistinction to insurance, with a focus on the shift introduced by big data and algorithms. Paradoxically, while the new technologies and epidemiology share a common view on the relation between the individual and the collective, tracing apps were not widely adopted in the Covid-19 crisis. This reluctance to use current technologies for the sake of epidemic containments highlights, beyond legitimate interrogations, a confusion between two imaginaries of the social: insurance solidarity where the interdependence is a source of rights, and epidemic solidarity that imposes duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the ongoing debate about the origins of biopolitics. While Foucault's analysis of biopolitics approached it as a modern rationality of government, Agamben's Homo Sacer series presented biopolitics as having a longer provenance, dating back to the antiquity. These polar positions are not mutually exclusive but coexist in these and other theories of biopolitics, which approach its object as both modern and ancient, having its chronological origin in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries yet also possessing a prehistory of precursors. The article interprets this dual origin in terms of Paolo Virno's theory of historical temporality, which distinguishes between the chronological past of historical events and their potential past, which accompanies and is negated in them. Coexisting with its own unrealized potential, every historical event remains incomplete and extends itself both backwards and forwards, positing its precursors and prefiguring its future outcomes. While modern in the chronological sense, biopolitics is retrospectively inscribed in a longer historical lineage, its antecedents easily identifiable in the history of political thought. Finally, we apply this approach to Virno's own account of the history of biopolitics, questioning his identification of past potential with labour-power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Quaestio Iuris (QI) is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses an inherent paradox in contemporary conceptualisations of community as a challenge to diaconia. Logics of protection separate insiders from outsiders, producing a fundamental antagonism between those who belong to the community and those who threaten it. During pandemics, this logic is exacerbated. When contagion threatens all, even the community needs to be protected from itself. Immunitarian defences are required for the safety of all community members. However, measures implemented to ensure immunity can also harm people’s mental and somatic health. This paradox presents ethical and practical challenges for inclusive justice, including diaconia. Concerning this dilemma, the article draws on Roberto Esposito’s reframing of community and immunitarian defence. Esposito argues that immunitarian mechanisms must promote tolerance of otherness through openness to its presence within. I suggest that this openness can be seen as a fundamental ontological vulnerability shared by all living creatures. Learning from recent contributions within vulnerability studies and feminist and trauma theologies, I employ Tony Addy’s concept of conviviality as a model for diaconal community building, seeking to elucidate the relevance of Esposito’s thinking to postpandemic diaconal practice.

This article examines Gianfranco Rosi's first documentary Boatman (1993) from the perspective of the touristic gaze deployed by the film in its portrayal of the sacred city of Benares, India, and the activities that take place there on the banks of the River Ganges, from washing to funerary rites. I situate the film in relation to persistent ethical questions regarding documentary encounters with death, arguing that Rosi's self-reflexive alignment with – and interrogation of – several touristic gazes opens a set of primarily political concerns. These are elucidated in dialogue with the thought of philosopher Roberto Esposito on biopolitics and the 'immunitarian' paradigm. Through this lens, the documentary's self-conscious adoption of touristic perspectives may be understood as revealing and challenging an exoticizing fantasy, animated by contagion and immunity, that frames Benares as a space exempt from the modern biopolitical impulse to protect the boundaries of individuals from the shared fabric of the commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Athena: Filosofijos studijos is the property of Lithuanian Culture Research Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper is an attempt to interpret Magdalena Tulli's novels in the context of the immunological paradigm. Immunological threads are traced on three levels: firstly, in the context of the communities described in Sny i kamienie [Dreams and stones], Skaza [Flaw] and W czerwieni [In Red]; secondly, with regard to the narrative constantly encountering problems such as 'unwanted threads' that degenerate the stories and prevent the narrative from bringing them to an end. Thirdly, in the context of post-memory, that is, a memory with its roots extending beyond the experiences of the subject. According to the thesis she puts forward, Tulli activates the immunological discourse on these three levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of my article is to relate Roberto Esposito's reflections on Europe to his more recent proposal of instituent thought. I will try to do so by focusing on three theoretical cornerstones of Esposito's thought: the first concerns the evidence of a link between Europe, philosophy and politics. The second is deconstructive: it highlights the inadequacy of the answers of the most important contemporary ontological-political paradigms to the European crisis, as well as the impossibility of interpreting this crisis through theoretical-political categories such as sovereignty. The third relates more directly to the proposal of a new political ontology, which Esposito defines as instituent thought. Esposito's discussion of political theology is the central theoretical nucleus of this study. This discussion will focus, in particular, on the category of negation, from which any political ontology that is based on pure affirmativeness or absolute negation is criticized. In his opinion, philosophical theories developed on the basis of these assumptions have proved to be incomplete or ineffective in relation to the current European and global philosophical and political crisis. Esposito therefore perceives the urgent need to propose a line of thought that is neither negatively destituent (post-Heideggerian), nor affirmatively constituent (post-Deleuzian, post-Spinozian), but instituent (neo-Machiavellian), capable of thinking about order through conflict (the affirmative through the negative). Provided that we do not think of the institution statically–in a conservative sense–but dynamically, as constant instituting in which conflict can become an instrument of a politics increasingly inspired by justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trans/Form/Ação is the property of Trans/Form/Acao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Contemporary Italian philosophers criticise neoliberalism for dispossessing human beings of their own potentialities. With his genealogy of the dispositif of personhood, Roberto Esposito provides a framework for delineating the discursive resources that have generated popular consensus over this expropriation of human potentiality. Esposito argues that, from ancient Christianity to modern liberalism, philosophers have conceptualised 'the person' as a disembodied entity in control of her body but subordinated to God for the correct employment of bodily potentialities. I argue that the neoliberal discourse of human capital theory uses similar oppositions to subjugate human beings and the actualisation of their potentialities to free market competition. Neoliberal subjects are discursively rendered responsible for the correct use of their human capital, not in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of a market that, through competition, rewards those who obey market imperatives and punishes those who do not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An assessment of Machiavelli's declaration that he refrained from using stylistic ornamentation in his treatise on the prince, along with a brief review of theories of metaphor, serve as the basis for an analysis of both well-known and neglected metaphors found in the work. Some images (e.g. the ladder and Fortuna) are interpreted in a new light, and patterns of imagery emerge that reveal underlying meanings in Machiavelli's text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As witnessed over the last year, immunity emerged as one of most highly debated topics in the current Covid-19 pandemic. Countries around the globe have been debating whether herd immunity or lockdown is the best response, as the race continues for the development and rollout of effective vaccines against coronavirus and as the economic costs of implementing strict containment measures are weighed against public health costs. What became evident all the more is that immunity is precisely what bridges between biological life and political life in the current climate, be it in terms of the contentious notion of herd immunity, the geopolitical struggle for vaccines, or the possible emergence of “Covid-elite”, i.e. holders of so-called “immunity passports”. Immunity, as such, is certainly not only a matter of science and biology alone, but is inherently political in the way that pandemics themselves are often highly politicised. Drawing on the work of Roberto Esposito and other literature from the field of biopolitics and immunology, this paper provides a critical examination of the concept of immunity in light of the recent events, highlighting the intersections between the politics of defence and the politics of sacrifice which animate governments’ immunitary responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper ends with a discussion on the forms of solidarity and local initiatives that have been mobilised during the current pandemic and their potential for an affirmative form of biopolitics. Overall, the main aim of this paper is to provide a critical cultural and philosophical analysis of Covid-19 debates and responses and a nuanced account on the biopolitical effects of the current pandemic, highlighting the paradoxical nature of immunity which straddles at once negative practices of defence and sacrifice as well as affirmative forms of community and solidarity beyond state apparatuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diante da pandemia do Novo Coronavírus, muitos foram os problemas levantados pela filosofia a partir do modo “imunitário” com o qual a civilização industrial lidou com a crise, e muito tem sido aventado sobre a necessidade de se repensar o sentido da noção de comunidades de apoio e de resistência. Exemplos disso não faltam; dentre os filósofos que abordaram a crise, encontram-se desde Giorgio Agamben a Paul B. Preciado, entre outros. Neste artigo, pretendemos partir da discussão sobre imunologia e paradigma imunitário em Roberto Espósito para nos perguntar de que modo podemos pensar essa demanda por “comunidade” em meio a uma crise imunitária, no sentido biológico e político do termo. Temos por hipótese que, mais do que postular a oposição exclusiva dos termos, levantar a questão pela articulação deles nos abre dois modos possíveis de relação com a alteridade abissal que encontramos no vírus.

O objetivo deste artigo consiste em analisar o paradigma imunitário desenvolvido por Roberto Esposito no âmbito da biopolítica. A pesquisa é qualitativa e utiliza documentação indireta consistente em doutrina bibliográfica. As conclusões apontam que a noção de imunidade em Esposito está estruturalmente conectada com a modernidade, tem uma implicação negativa com a comunidade e um sentido de conexão entre vida e poder, mas pode destruir a própria vida se levada ao extremo. Além disso, a imunidade influencia as categorias jurídico-políticas tradicionais da soberania, liberdade e propriedade.

The triple established relationship – Ulbricht – Peterborough – Esposito – announced from the title of the present study, approaches the continuing research of Alexej Ulbricht, the option for a specific area as example, representative/nodal space for the current debates, dates and realities of multiculturalism – Peterborough – and the philosophical-political aspects of immunization logic, as filtered through and delivered by the Italian philosopher, Roberto Esposito. The continued research, the specific area and the named political philosopher option, converge towards the arguments Alexej Ulbricht provides for the state of beyond liberal multiculturalism immunization.

Unusually for Henry James, The Bostonians (1886) addresses notions of "the people," popular movements, and socio-political reform. Foregrounding the position of women, the narrative searchingly, if ambiguously, appraises conditions in the United States of the 1870s, following the Civil War. As Olive Chancellor (a Boston feminist) and Basil Ransom (a conservative Southerner) vie for possession of the malleable orator Verena Tarrant, the text explores the failure of "union" in both its personal and political senses. The populist-feminist rally concluding the narrative highlights the prevailing challenges to democratic possibilities. Community in its traditionally cohesive guise has metamorphosed into the "inoperative community" theorized by Jean-Luc Nancy. Mutually dependent, monadic "singularities" converge in tense encounter. "Community," according to Roberto Esposito, inevitably separates such vulnerable "singularities" from themselves and others through the play of social relationality. The novel's democratic orientation is nonetheless sustained by its capacious form and the hospitable engagement of its readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at three recent examples of superheroic masculinity in Italian film and media, arguing that it is always conceptualized transnationally, triangulated between Italy, the United States and a vague 'East'. This transnational masculinity is repeatedly coupled with fantasies and anxieties about the environment – the toxic, as Mel Chen suggests, is animate, weaving in and out of containers, bodies and borders, allowing it to threaten Italian bodies (toxic waste, garbage, the 'ecomafia' of the South), and allowing us to imagine that it might bestow on those same bodies the strength, vitality and power to resist the toxic. Ultimately, these toxic and transnational male bodies may be always from elsewhere, but strangely Italian, too – after all, Esposito argues that the hallmark of Italian thought is precisely a refusal of the idea of a stable and strong national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Italica is the property of University of Illinois Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Immanence is a key concept in Gilles Deleuze's thought. It emerges in 1968, in the book Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza and it is a focus until his last text. Immanence is a concept steeped in theological resonances, which disturbs Western metaphysics and politics. But, according to Deleuze, immanence is not really a concept, rather it is a 'plan'. 'The plan of immanence' is the 'prephilosophical' working plan of philosophy. The point is that, according to Deleuze, philosophy cannot be understood only conceptually, although it begins with the creation of concepts. Here, rather, what is at stake is a prephilosophical origin of philosophy itself. This relationship between the plane of immanence and philosophy is the most important aspect that some of best-known exponents of contemporary Italian philosophy have inherited from Deleuze. The focus of this essay is on three expressions of the plane of immanence in the sense of Deleuze that have been developed in contemporary Italian Thought: the 'constituent power' of politics in Antonio Negri; the 'impersonal' in Roberto Esposito; and the 'potentiality' in Giorgio Agamben. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Roberto Esposito’s "Living Thought" from the point of view of "Italian Theory", a topic that Esposito introduces and analyzes in the first chapter. "Italian Theory" doesn’t aim to emphasize a "national difference" in philosophy in order to resist to the uniformity of Anglo-American globalization, but rather it represents a critical perspective within the "geophilosophy" of today, that would aim to think the difference of a particular philosophical tradition neither as "national" nor as the newest trend of the global academic market.

In recent years, Italian philosophy is having enormous success in the United States, to the point that today we hear more and more of the “New Italian Thought”. The objective of this essay is to analyse this phenomenon from a historical point of view and see how and to what extent interest in Italian thought has grown in the USA, traversing the fundamental stages that have contributed to the acknowledgement of the “New Italian Thought”.