II.
Biographical Note
Biographical information on Giorgio Agamben (b. 1942) is,
unfortunately, scarce. In an interview given in French, Agamben speaks a little
of his formative years and the influences of his thought. In the early 1960s, Agamben,
then in his early twenties, attended law school; however, his true passion was
writing, which led him to philosophy. In 1966 and 1968, Agamben attended two
intimate seminars led by Martin Heidegger, and it was during these seminars
that, for Agamben, “philosophy became possible.”[i]
However, of his time studying under Heidegger, Agamben also commented, “Any
great work contains a dark side and poison, against which it does not always
provide the antidote. [Walter] Benjamin was, for me, that antidote, which
helped me survive Heidegger.” His work thus oscillates between Heidegger, to
whom Agamben attributes his interest in ontology and negativity, and the more
politically responsible Benjamin, to whom Agamben attributes his interest in
philology and “the material contact with texts.”[ii]
More recently, his thinking has been equally informed by Hannah Arendt, Carl
Schmitt, and, especially, the discussions of biopower and the archaeological
method of Michel Foucault. Commenting on this diverse array of influences,
Agamben describes himself as an “epigone...trying to finish, to complete what
others, far better than him, have left unaccomplished.”[iii]
Having published prolifically since the early 1970s, over
his career Agamben has developed a singular approach to questions of
literature, aesthetics and, more recently, politics, law, and religion, working
through these topics with a foundational attention to the uses of language in
constituting, representing, consolidating, and unworking power relationships.
Agamben’s international reputation as one of Europe’s leading thinkers has
grown considerably through his publication in English, starting in the early
1990s; his work has been particularly well-received by proponents of critical
theory as decisive commentary on the juridico-institutional and political
crises facing the world. However, in 2004, Giorgio Agamben unexpectedly
cancelled a highly anticipated series of lectures at New York University in
protest of the United States’ invasive identification policies for immigrants
and visitors—in an article published in a French newspaper, Agamben
unequivocally referred to the fingerprinting, retinal scans, and data
registration that homeland security requires of visitors as a form of
“biopolitical tattooing.”[iv]
Agamben’s decision to cancel this series of lectures, as well as his reasoning,
may seem puzzling to those unfamiliar with his work; therefore, to understand
Agamben’s decision, as well as lay the necessary theoretical groundwork for a
discussion of Remnants of Auschwitz, it will be necessary to examine the
content of an earlier book, Homo Sacer:
Sovereign Power and Bare Life.
[i] Giorgio Agamben, 1999, “Agamben, le chercheur d’homme
[Agamben, researcher of humankind],” interview by Jean-Baptiste Marongiu, Libération, April 1,
http://www.liberation.fr/livres/0101279283-agamben-le-chercheur-d-homme
(accessed April 26, 2012). This and all
following direct quotes from this source are my own translation.
[ii]
Ibid.
[iii]
Ibid.
[iv] Cited Alex Murray, Giorgio Agamben (New York: Routledge, 2010), 74.
