Tag Archives: Giorgio Agamben

Destituent power as living communism

“To destitute is not primarily to attack the institution, but to attack the need we have of it.” This statement, from the Invisible Committee’s text Now (2016), is at the heart of an essay by Spencer Beswick that we share … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Carlo Levi: A witness to freedom

… all history unfolds in every individual life. Of course this only happens when history does unfold, because it can also stop, or turn backward or spin emptily on its own axis like a mechanical top. Carlo Levi, The Watch … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Giorgio Agamben: Our task is to think, together

I believe that it is not certain that we can continue to do as we have done so far, that is, to fight or act in the name of principles and concepts such as democracy, the constitution, law, which perhaps … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Giorgio Agamben: On the government of the faceless and the deathless

The Face and Death [Il volto e la morte – text published in the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung“, April 30th, 2021 and in Quodlibet] It seems that in the new planetary order that is gaining form two things, apparently unrelated to … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged | Leave a comment

Leo Tolstoy remembered against the pandemic

But actually history is not the soil of happiness. The periods of happiness are blank pages in it. […] In world history only those peoples that form states can come to our notice. G.W.F. Hegel, General Introduction to the Philosophy … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Reading the times with Alain Badiou

Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternally creative source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too. Mikhail Bakunin, The Reaction in Germany (1842) … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Refusing to forget a revolution: The Arab Spring

It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Giorgio Agamben: Regarding the coming time

Regarding the coming time (Quodlibet) What is happening on a planetary scale today is certainly the end of a world. But not – such as for those who seek to govern it according to their interests – in the sense … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The wind blows where it wills

A further exercise in reading events with Giorgio Agamben, this time a short reflection by Jeanne Casilas, published by lundi matin #263 (15/11/2020). The wind blows where it wills L’art est comme l’incendie, il naît de ce qui brûle/Art is … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged | Leave a comment

Giorgio Agamben: Love has been abolished

Si è abolito l’amore Si è abolito l’amorein nome della salutepoi si abolirà la salute. Si è abolita la libertàin nome della medicinapoi si abolirà la medicina. Si è abolito Dioin nome della ragionepoi si abolirà la ragione. Si è … Continue reading

Posted in Poiesis | Tagged | Leave a comment