ITAL 6480

Biopolitics and COVID

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

What does it mean to practice theory in the midst of a pandemic? And then what does it mean to return to biopolitics — a mode of theoretical reflection on the enmeshment of life and politics — in the time of Covid-19? These questions lie at the heart of a seminar dedicated to re-examining some of the central theoretical set pieces of biopolitics. Alongside seminal texts from Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, we will take up biopolitics in a number of philosophical works from Italy from the likes of Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, Toni Negri, and Simona Forti in order to think again some of the key words and concepts of biopolitics (states of exception, community, immunity, event) in the time of virus.

When Offered Fall.

Comments Conducted in English.

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