Towards a Biopolitics of the People. From Arendt to Agamben and Back Again

Abstract: Among the many reactions from philosophers and political theorists to the coronavirus crisis, Giorgio Agamben’s is the most extreme. According to the Italian philosopher, governments all over Europe use Covid-19 as a pretext to end Western democracy. The measures they have taken are meant not so much to slow down the spread of the virus as to render the citizenry politically powerless by reducing them to their sheer biological existence. This interpretation of the pandemic and its political aftermath builds on the notion of biopolitics that Agamben advances in his multi-volume Homo Sacer series. And this notion, in turn, owes a great deal to the thought of Hannah Arendt. This leaves one pondering whether Agamben’s is the only way to avail oneself of Arendt’s ideas in order to tackle the coronavirus crisis. This paper responds to this question with a resounding no. It shows that Arendt’s thought can be put to quite different use. Rejecting Agamben’s vision of doom, we hold that the .... https://www.hannaharendt.net/index.php/han/article/view/462

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Towards a Biopolitics of the People. From Arendt to Agamben and Back Again ; volume:11 ; number:1 ; year:2021 ; HannahArendt.net ; 11, Heft 1 (2021)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Pistrol, Florian ; Mayerhofer, Melanie

Further information

• DOI: 10.57773/hanet.v11i1.462
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2024020211135372741869
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:25 AM CEST