Grant Morrison’s Animal Man could be argued to worry the man/animal boundary. Using closereadings of the comics against the backdrop of Jacques Derrida’s and Martin Heidegger’stheories on the boundary between man and animal, I explore the following ideas which seemcommon in the discourses on that which separates humans from animals: intelligence vs. instinct,the human hand vs. the animal’s paw, humanity’s richness-in-world vs. animal’s poorness-inworld,and language.In Animal Man, Morrison gives voice to animal characters by giving them personalities,which seems a romanticizing of the real state of affairs. Alongside all the depicted animals, thereare many hybrid characters, which take on the characteristics of both humans and animals. Theuse of hybrid characters such as the Coyote and Animal Man problematize the boundary betweenman and animal. This study of Animal Man, most importantly, shows that the differences as wellas similarities between humans and animals are based on ideologically produced discourses, andthis includes Morrison’s own philosophy on animal rights and his activism. I argue that Morrisonboth worries the boundary between humans and animals, and keeps it operative in order to makethe reader perceive animals in more anthropocentric terms.

There is a consensus today that we have witnessed the end of postmodernism in both fiction and theory. Due to contemporary fiction’s break with postmodernism being recent, little research has been done to outline the parameters of what exactly this break entails and its relationship to theory and current socio-political issues. The aim of this thesis is to attempt to differentiate between postmodernist fiction and contemporary fiction that was produced from the late 90’s up to today, outline its main characteristics and suggest alternative ways theory may be used to critically analyse fiction. We will be looking at how Habermas’s, Agamben’s, Žižek’s and Badiou’s theories, as well as, a reconsideration of some of Derrida’s and Baudrillard’s theories, can help elucidate certain aspects of contemporary fiction and vice versa. Some of the novelists that will be considered in this discussion are Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Douglas Coupland, J G Ballard, Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe and Michel Houellebecq due to their close association with postmodernism and its aftermath. The thesis is divided thematically in five chapters. In the first chapter we will be discussing the impact of 9/11 on contemporary fiction in relation to Derrida’s, Habermas’s, Baudrillard’s and Žižek’s responses to the attacks. The second chapter is concerned with notions of reality and its representations in contemporary fiction. It will be discussed how they differ from Baudrillard’s conceptualisation of hyperreality during postmodernity in light of Badiou’s and Žižek’s theory mainly. The realist/antirealist debate will also be addressed. The third chapter is a consideration of notions of subjectivity in both contemporary theory and fiction and how they may be said to differ from playful, schizophrenic representations of the subject during postmodernity. The fourth chapter is concerned with the return of the political in both theory and fiction after the supposed apoliticality of the postmodern novel, which we will also be addressing. The final chapter is an investigation of the re-emergence of the religious in contemporary culture, including the novel, which proves that the death of meta-narratives may not have been that final after all.

This thesis is concerned with the ways in which Muslims in Russia’s Povolzhye region define, and strive towards, spiritual and material well-being. It explores how pious subjectivities are cultivated in a secular and often politically hostile environment. In addition, it deals with Povolzhye Muslims’s pursuit of worldly success in the context of social change brought about by Russia’s transition to a market economy. Povolzhye is a prosperous, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional historical region, home to Russia’s second largest ethnic group, the Volga Tatars. Although the Tatars have been Sunni Muslims for centuries, the post-Soviet emergence of cosmopolitan, scripturalist piety trends – which I collectively refer to as Povolzhye’s ‘halal movement’ – has raised unprecedented concerns and disputes about the meaning of Muslimness and the place of Muslims in Russian society. Scripturalist virtue-ethics projects have been underrepresented within the expanding body of anthropological literature concerning Islam in the former USSR, and particularly in the Russian Federation. With its explicit ethnographic focus on Povolzhye’s halal movement, this work aims at filling this gap. The halal movement is characterised by its hypermodern transnational imagery as well as significant discursive overlapping with the realms of business and economy. The pursuit of a virtuous existence is particularly appealing to those ascending sectors of society that most successfully engage with Russia’s post-socialist free-market environment, while the idiom of piety both communicates and dissimulates novel forms of stratification and exclusion. This project brings together anthropological theories of ethical self-cultivation with approaches that focus on power, social change, and political economy. In order to explore the political life of the halal movement vis-à-vis both state institutions and the market, I employ Giorgio Agamben’s notions of ‘form-of-life’ and ‘rule/law’, which shed light on the relationship between power and virtue in original ways. In addition, particular attention is given to the social distribution of virtue and the role it plays in reproducing distinction, status, and a ‘capitalist spirit’.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:27:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Flavia D Urso.pdf: 1616648 bytes, checksum: f578da696de954a5e5e0f53b4ba54798 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-06-03 / Sovereignty is a concept made shallow as it presents frail theoretical solutions when applied to aspects from reality. The research hereby aims at understanding Giorgio Agamben s diagnosis on sovereignty by going through the core of Carl Schmitt s thinking in his theory of the sovereign power as well as the displacement of such problem in Michel Foucault s writings. Agamben is an intellectual who perused stern philosophical pathways, sovereignty having stood first and foremost for him along the issue of the potentiality of not being. His approach to reality takes place through the motto to prefer not to, from which he glimpses one possibility for putting down one s relationship between wanting and being able to, and between the constituent and constituted powers. And such annihilation is in effect essential for Agamben since his concept of sovereignty takes into consideration a juridical category not only weakened of its representativeness but most of all originating from an unprecedented biopolitical catastrophe. The path chosen by Agamben for such conclusion is one of a paradigmatic ontology, that is, the axes of understanding for the phenomena which ousted political character from juridical ordinances. The paradigms nuda vita (bare life) and the state of exception mainly constitute the structural elements whose function is to ultimately keep the exception-ridden life of the law. The bottleneck established by sovereignty is undone by a new form-of-life, which means the absolute desecration of a life power over which neither sovereignty nor the law can have control over / A soberania é conceito esvaziado porque apresenta frágeis soluções teóricas quando aplicadas aos aspectos da realidade. Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo a compreensão do diagnóstico de Giorgio Agamben a respeito da soberania percorrendo a centralidade da teoria do poder soberano do pensamento de Carl Schmitt e o deslocamento do problema em Michel Foucault. Agamben é um intelectual de árido percurso filosófico e a soberania para ele, antes de tudo, é uma questão da potencialidade de não ser. A sua aproximação da realidade se dá pela fórmula preferiria não, na qual ele vislumbra uma possibilidade de destruição da relação entre querer e poder, entre poder constituinte e poder constituído. E tal destruição, de fato, é essencial para Agamben porque o seu conceito de soberania considera uma categoria jurídica não só esvaziada de representação, mas, sobretudo, originária de uma catástrofe biopolítica sem precedentes. O caminho escolhido por Agamben para essa conclusão é o de uma ontologia paradigmática, ou seja, eixos de entendimento para os fenômenos que destituíram o caráter político do ordenamento jurídico. Os paradigmas da nuda vita e do estado de exceção, principalmente, são elementos estruturais da soberania cuja função é, enfim, o de manter a vida excepcionada do direito. O nó estabelecido pela soberania desata-se por uma nova forma-de-vida, o que significa uma absoluta profanação de uma potência da vida sobre a qual nem a soberania, nem o direito podem ter mais controle

This thesis highlights the practice of writing as a way to engage with the amorphous thing-space-State-city-nation-citizens that is

This thesis firstly aims at discussing the early works of American poet Marianne Moore (1887-1972) through the bio-philosophical perspectives developed since the investigations of Estonian Jacob von Uexküll (1864-1944). The study elucidates Uexküll’s research on the web-like forms of life that is the Umwelt of animals and Moore’s creation of poetic environments. Such investigations provide a basis for the analysis of Moore’s animals and environments in dialogue with Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) concepts of “poverty in world”, and “animal captivation”. Uexküll’s and Heidegger’s concepts are revised by Italian Giorgio Agamben (1942- ), who proposes that there is an openness in the state of being ontologically captivated, caused by interactional processes occurring within the environment. Subsequently, taking into account these same perspectives, this thesis offers a comparative study of Marianne Moore and Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999), engaging, respectively, her early poems with his book O Cão Sem Plumas [The Dog without Feathers], written in 1950. From the bio-philosophical perspectives previously discussed, this study focuses on moral and ethical stances addressed towards interpretations of the onto-ethological (Buchanan, 2008) nature of animals. The study analyses how both Moore and Melo Neto convey their ethical reflections and specific moral issues through expressions of nature and animal life, especially when they emphasise contexts of violence, misery and deprivation, either in material or conceptual respects, involved with the ontological and world-forming conditions of both animals and human beings. Therefore, the research will focus on their use of literary devices, such as allegories, and literary genres, such as fables, in order to develop both explicit and implicit dimensions of their poetry, thus providing a deeper understanding of the ontological status of animals and human beings.

L'un des constats fondamentaux qui se dégage de l'œuvre de Michel Foucault est celui d'une inscription moderne du biologique dans le politique. Ce constat marque ainsi l'ouverture d'une perspective biopolitique, qui propose une analyse transversale reliant les rapports de pouvoir, les modes d'objectivation du savoir, ainsi que les modes de production du sujet moderne. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, nous tenterons de cerner la pertinence actuelle de l'approche biopolitique comme outil pour une analyse sociologique critique des sociétés libérales contemporaines. Pour ce faire, nous proposerons une analyse synthétique et comparative des travaux de trois auteurs, qui incarnent chacun un moment-clé dans la problématisation de la biopolitique : Michel Foucault pour son articulation initiale à travers une analyse positive et relationnelle des techniques de pouvoir sur l'individu et la population, Nikolas Rose pour son actualisation sociologique des thèses de Foucault dans le champ contemporain de la santé, ainsi que Giorgio Agamben pour sa réarticulation théorique de la perspective biopolitique avec celle du pouvoir souverain. Nous proposerons donc une synthèse critique des différentes notions et conceptions qui se dégagent du corpus de chaque auteur, en les confrontant entre elles ainsi qu'à des objets sociologiques contemporains qui ont trait à l'encadrement de la vie humaine, prise à la fois comme sociale et biologique. Nous dégagerons ainsi le mode particulier de problématisation de la vie qui se dégage des textes de chacun de nos auteurs, dans le but d'interpréter leur signification en regard des mutations politiques de la modernité. Finalement, nous soulignerons la portée et les limites de leurs analyses respectives afin de faire émerger les caractéristiques d'un « gouvernement de la vie » dans les sociétés libérales contemporaines. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : assujettissement, biopolitique, biopouvoir, Giorgio Agamben, gouvernementalité, Michel Foucault, médecine, modernité, Nikolas Rose, norme, politique, population, pouvoir, santé, savoir, société libérale, souveraineté, subjectivation, sujet.

DIÓGENES, Francisco Bruno Pereira. O que resta da identidade entre biopolítica e tanatopolítica em Giorgio Agamben. 2012. 129f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia, Fortaleza (CE), 2012. / Submitted by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-11-11T17:32:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-FBPDIOGENES.pdf: 6982991 bytes, checksum: a65108efbd47581dd25bc8ade1574286 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo(marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-11-12T10:43:03Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-FBPDIOGENES.pdf: 6982991 bytes, checksum: a65108efbd47581dd25bc8ade1574286 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-12T10:43:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2012-DIS-FBPDIOGENES.pdf: 6982991 bytes, checksum: a65108efbd47581dd25bc8ade1574286 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / A intenção da presente pesquisa é situar o pensamento político de Giorgio Agamben no horizonte que lhe dá maior sentido, a saber, o da biopolítica. Para tanto, adentrar-se-á, inicialmente, nas reflexões do primeiro grande expoente dessa perspectiva, Michel Foucault, já que este repropõe o termo biopolítica de modo a direcioná-la para uma nova compreensão e crítica da modernidade e do poder. Posteriormente, tratar-se-á da reflexão agambeniana acerca do estado de exceção e do seu vínculo com o poder soberano. Estes, para o autor, se fundam, necessariamente, em um paradoxo, porquanto pressupõem a existência de uma figura (o soberano) interna e, ao mesmo tempo, externa à própria ordem na qual se encontra. O objetivo do percurso aqui realizado é mostrar como Agamben faz convergir os dois modelos de análise do poder, isto é, o da biopolítica e o jurídico-político, este último evitado por Foucault. Antes, porém, será necessário desenvolver os conceitos de zoé, bíos e vida nua, e apresentar duas figuras do direito arcaico, o homo sacere o bando, à medida que marcam, para o autor, o lado inverso do mesmo paradoxo fundamental, ou seja, o lado sob o qual o poder soberano investe sua violência. O profícuo debate entre Carl Schmitt e Walter Benjamin apresentará outros pressupostos da teoria da soberania de Agamben, no que tange à questão da violência e da exceção soberana, igualmente fundamental para o desenvolvimento da perspectiva biopolítica do filósofo italiano. Esses conceitos, dentre outros, constituem, para Agamben, elementos originários da política ocidental que marcam a premência da sua tese da contiguidade e paralelismo entre soberania e biopoder. Tudo isso permitirá compreender a transformação da biopolítica em seu desdobramento, decorrido desde o século passado, no que se convencionou chamar d e “tanatopolítica”, na qual se encontram práticas como a eutanásia e o extermínio em massa realizado nos campos de concentração. Os grandes regimes totalitários do século XX, segundo Agamben, só podem ser compreendidos adequadamente, e em toda a sua complexidade, a partir da perspectiva que tem como ponto de partida algo como o conceito de vida nua. Antes, porém, deve-se observar a reflexão de Hannah Arendt acerca da relação entre direito e nacionalidade, sobre a qual Agamben faz uma leitura específica e, por assim dizer, biopolítica. O nexo essencial entre nascimento e nação faz emergir, para ambos os autores, tanto os Direitos Humanos como os Campos, ambos considerados cifras da realização do biopoder. O trabalho encerrará com a reflexão conclusiva de Agamben sobre o que significa, para a ordem política contemporânea, a existência dos campos.

En érigeant un cadre théorique réunissant les concepts de fixation spatiale et d’état d’exception, la présente thèse vise à brosser un portrait des Zones franches d’exportation (ZF) à la lumière du cas salvadorien entre les années 1980 et 2000. L’objectif est de proposer des pistes de réflexion quant au caractère exceptionnel des ZF et leur insertion dans les cycles d’accumulation capitalistes. Sont ainsi abordés les discours légitimant la création des ZF et leur maintien, les moyens financiers, juridiques et logistiques déployés pour permettre leur construction, les relations de pouvoir exceptionnelles qui caractérisent les rapports intra et extra-ZF ainsi que les intérêts que les ZF servent. Cette thèse se veut donc une tentative de compréhension du processus général à l’oeuvre derrière les ZF, dans l’objectif de mieux cibler les possibilités de résistance. *** This thesis aims to analyse the emergence of export processing zones (EPZ) through a theoretical framework that combines the concepts of spatial fix and state of exception. Taking as an illustration the Salvadoran case in the 1980-2000 period, the objective is to suggest means for reflecting on the exceptional character of the EPZ and their insertion in cycles of capitalist accumulation. The thesis will also explore the discourses legitimizing the creation and the retention of EPZ, the logistical, juridical and financial means deployed to allow their construction, the exceptional power relations that characterize the intra and extra-EPZ relations and the interests served by EPZ. This thesis is thus an attempt to encompass the general process behind the EPZ, in order to identify the resistance possibilities.

The main objective of this thesis is to formulate a practical aesthetic framework from Giorgio Agamben’s writings, and to use his concepts as an interpretative tool in relation to certain aspects of poetry in contemporary art. The specific category of printed poetry by artists is studied from a meta perspective, looking primarily at the gesture performed by writing poetry as an artist. A selective history of poetry in art looks at Marcel Broodthaers and the Bernadette Corporation, including the ways in which they can clarify the aesthetics of Agamben, followed by a shorter interpretations of three contemporary artist-poets – Karl Larsson, Karl Holmqvist and Hanne Lippard. These works can be defined as a hybrid third with Agamben, not art, but making the absence of art present. Works that are neither poetry nor art but with the availability and potential for both. An aesthetic terminology from Agamben is an aesthetics of privation and potential, of absence and inoperability, as well as an aesthetics of negation and resistance. A framework for looking at the tension between activity and passivity, and the resistance present there. The concept of potentiality also proves to be a fruitful opening for the interpretation of art leaning toward negation or withdrawal. / Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning Uppsatsen undersöker en samling filosofiska begrepp kopplade till konst, hämtade från några av den italienska filosofen Giorgio Agambens böcker. Dessa kan läsas som en estetisk modell, och användas för att tolka konst som tangerar aspekter av inaktivitet och frånvaro, eller befinner sig mellan konst och andra uttrycksformer. Poesi skriven av konstnärer läses här ur ett metaperspektiv, med hjälp av Agambens filosofiska ramverk. Poesins kvalitet eller effekt är inte det huvudsakliga intresset, utan den gest som skrivandet av poesin förkroppsligar. En historisk kontext presenteras genom konstnären Marcel Broodthaers och konstnärsgruppen Bernadette Corporation. De filosofiska begreppen prövas sedan på tre samtida artist-poets, konstnärer som skriver poesi. Agamben ger verktyg för tolkning av konst som dra sig undan definition och representation. Uppsatsen påvisar hur poesi, när den produceras av konstnärer, kan tolkas som ett motstånd mot konstmarknaden.