Submitted by Marcelo Andrade Silva (marcelo.andradesilva@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-05T13:40:59Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Germana_dissert.pdf: 585562 bytes, checksum: fb3157d0aac7b86bb1b372efba11f732 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:40:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Germana_dissert.pdf: 585562 bytes, checksum: fb3157d0aac7b86bb1b372efba11f732 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / A ultrapassagem do conceito de biopolítica para o de tanatopolítica acompanha o desconcerto da nossa atualidade política. A biopolítica entendida por Michel Foucault é uma tecnologia de poder cuja ação estende-se tanto aos indivíduos isoladamente quanto à população como um todo. A partir das investigações promovidas por Foucault acerca da biopolítica trouxemos ao debate a tematização de Hannah Arendt sobre a banalidade do mal, posto que encontramos simetria entre o modo de gerência característico da biopolítica e a consequente formação de subjetividades tendenciosas à obediência irrestrita e, como consequência, descomprometidas com a atividade de pensar. Junto a estas análises acrescentamos às reflexões o panorama teórico de Giorgio Agamben quando trata da nossa contemporaneidade ao inaugurar uma nova representação ao trazer à luz a exceção característica do nosso fazer político e sua produção de hominissacri e vidas nuas.

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[pt] A dissertação parte da afirmação feita por Agamben no prefácio de Estâncias de que a palavra ocidental encontra-se fraturada, cindida em um polo extático-inspirado [a poesia] e um polo racional-consciente [a filosofia], sem que nenhum dos dois consiga reduzir plenamente o outro. A partir desse diagnóstico, que retoma o tema platônico da antiga querela, delineam-se alguns dos modos como a relaçao aparece em parte da obra do filósofo (além do já citado Estâncias, A linguagem e a morte, o prefácio de Infância e história, Categorias italianas, Ideia da prosa e a seção acerca do sujeito em O que resta de Auschwitz), discutindo-se temas como som e sentido, dessubjetivação, inefabilidade do fundamento da linguagem e corpo e linguagem, privilegiando sempre o diálogo que Agamben estabelece com a literatura e trazendo poetas para o debate. / [en] This dissertation begins with Agamben s claim in the introduction of Stanzas: the western word is fractured, split between inspired-ecstatic [poetry] and rational-conscious [philosophy] poles, neither ever succeeding in wholly reducing the other. From this diagnosis, which resumes the theme of the ancient quarrel, some of the ways in which the relation between philosophy and poetry appear in Agamben s work are delineated (in some of his writings such as Stanzas, Language and Death, the preface to Infancy and History, Categorie Italiane, Idea of Prose and the chapter about the subject in The Remnants of Auschwitz). Themes like sound and sense, desubjectivation, the ineffability of the negative foundation of language and body and language are discussed, always privileging the dialogue Agamben establishes with literature and bringing poets to the debate.

This dissertation is based on the observation that Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" has become a popular reference in contemporary culture. Not only in the field of literary scholarship but also in the realm of art, political theory and philosophy, it is employed as an example of authentic resistance to power, a counter-intuitive politics that finds its strength in withdrawal, inaction, and inscrutability. The thesis examines the reasons and motives that drive literary scholars, artists and philosophers to read, interpret and use the story in such a way. It does so by analyzing the nature of and reoccurring patterns in Bartleby Industry, the enormous bulk of academic scholarship devoted to the story. It observes how the story is made use of outside of literary scholarship by disciplines, such as art and philosophy, that are not primarily concerned with the literary complexity of the story but use it to work on their own problems of politics and ethics. It pays special attention to its popularity among influential Postmarxist philosophers, namely Slavoj Žižek, Giorgio Agamben and Gilles Deleuze. As the presence of "Bartleby" in the realm of philosophy has to do with a particular function literature performs in that field, in these chapters "Bartleby" becomes more of a guiding thread in order to...

La question du règne des philosophes ne se comprend qu’au prix d’un détour par les marges de la politique classique. D’abord nous avons montré que ces marges sont définies historiquement par un discours qui articule le règne, le savoir et le salut (chapitre I). Puis nous avons montré que la notion de règne, dès lors qu’elle est attribuée à des philosophes, s’établit dans les marges de la notion classique de basilein, en en subvertissant le sens classique (chapitre II). Ensuite nous avons montré que le discours sur le règne des philosophes est une tentative venant des marges de la politique pour subvertir en en faisant usage, c’est-à-dire pour destituer, la liaison classique entre le muthos et l’unification politique (chapitre III), ce qui a impliqué de comprendre comment le philosophe peut être aux marges de la politique tout en en étant le fondement (chapitre IV). Cela nous a conduit à voir que le philosophe est en marge par rapport à l’exigence d’être utile à la cité (chapitre V) et par rapport à l’exigence d’un savoir fondé sur l’expérience (chapitre VI). Enfin, nous avons essayé de montrer que le règne des philosophes s’inscrit dans la recherche du salut de la cité, thème marginal dans les études sur Platon (chapitre VII). / The question of the philosophers’ reign can only be understood at the cost of a detour through the margins of classical politics. First of all, I have shown that these margins have historically been defined by a discourse focusing on the relationship between kingdom, knowledge and salvation (chapter 1). I have then shown that the notion of kingdom itself, when it is attributed to philosophers, positions itself in the margins of the notion of basilein, while actively subverting its classical meaning (chapter 2). The discourse about the philosophers’ reign must therefore be understood as an attempt coming from the margins of politics to use the traditional relation between the muthos and political unification, in order to subvert it, namely, to depose it. This required me to explore the way in which the philosopher can simultaneously be in the margins of politics and at the very foundation of politics (chapter 4). The philosopher’s position in the city is doubly marginal: first, he is not subject to the imperative to be useful to the city (chapter 5), and secondly, he is not subject to the imperative to ground knowledge in experience (chapter 6). Finally, I have set out to show that the philosophers’ reign inscribes itself within a quest for the city’s salvation, a theme that is itself marginal in Plato studies, and deserves more attention than it has hitherto received (chapter 7).

The main area of inquiry for this thesis is super-maximum security prisons or as commonly referred to “supermax prisons”. First, the thesis traces the shift from the use of physical punishment to the use of disciplinary measures in punitive institutions and the development of the modern prison until it reaches its latest form as embodied in the supermax model. Secondly, the design, characteristics, and conditions of these prisons are also explored to demonstrate how they systematically contribute to the dehumanization and depersonalization of prisoners. These institutions are subsequently found to represent physical spaces of the lawless “state of exception” that reduces inmates to a “bare” animal-like form of living through depriving them of all the rights and prerogatives granted to them by law. Third, the thesis analyzes the penological rationale commonly invoked to justify supermax prisons and concludes that it suffers from a clear deficiency in demonstrating any evidence-based credibility. Finally, the thesis sheds light on the devastating and long-lasting impacts of supermax confinement on mental health and argues that it may be in violation of fundamental human rights such as the right against torture and other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment or punishment as provided by international law.

The state of emergency presents an array of problems for the protection of human rights. Foucault’s biopolitics and Agamben’s concept of the state of exception have been instrumental in the formulation of analyses which seek to understand the full extent of this area of tension. However, there is scope for the study of the state of emergency in a theoretical context which situates this mechanism within the broader scheme of human rights. In drawing upon these spheres of study and taking a distinctly theoretical approach to the research problem, the aim of this paper is to reappraise the ways in which commonly cited theories are applied.

This thesis is concerned with the Canadian state’s rhetoric of reconciliation, the logic of exceptionality that supports it, and the ways this logic helps soften Indigenous communities for resource development. In formulating my theoretical framework, I draw from Agamben’s theories of sovereignty and states of exception, Mark Rifkin’s reworking of Agamben’s theories to accommodate a settler-colonial context, Pauline Wakeham’s application of the logic of exceptionality to rhetorics of apology and terrorism, and Glen Coulthard’s concepts of translation (as the attempt to bring Indigenous discourses and life ways into the realm of a Western/settler-colonial discourse of state sovereignty) and grounded normativity (as a way of making visible the contingency of such narratives of state sovereignty). Following the work of James Tully and John Borrows in Resurgence and Reconciliation, particularly the argument that transformative reconciliation must involve reconciliation with the living earth, my project aims to show that official reconciliation actually prevents the possibility of transformative reconciliation because of the role it plays in furthering an extractivist agenda by “exceptionalizing" Indigenous peoples and life-ways to rhetorically contain Indigenous anti-colonial or anti-industry actions, physically contain Indigenous dissenters during moments of crisis (i.e. states of exception), pre-emptively frame Indigenous dissenters as terroristic, and foreclose discussions of ongoing colonialism. / Graduate

The purpose of the thesis is to challenge the traditional division between securitization and humanitarian practices in relation to migration, more specifically smuggling of migrants. Based on Nina Perkowski’s study of the relationship between humanitarianism, human rights and security and her theoretical division between paternalistic and emancipatory humanitarianism, these two interpretations have been further developed in this study, substantiated by Agamben, Foucault and Butler (among others), and produced as two idealtypes. These idealtypes give a more nuanced picture of the relation between paternalistic and emancipatory humanitarianism, and how the paternalistic one interacts with securitization to protect Europe as a sovereign entity. Two research-questions are analyzed through idea-analysis as the textual analytic method to make visible the different ideas in the material.  The thesis finds that EU in its problematization of migrant smuggling have a paternalistic approach and how this approach enables for securitization of migrant smuggling and irregular migration to protect human life. But is human life the only thing EU intends to protect? The results for instance show how externalization of borders, cooperation with countries of origin and information campaigns for migrants, all serve security purposes with the European union as the referent-object.

By examining the allegorical ways which bodies are produced and their movement controlled within J.M. Coetzee’s works, Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace, this thesis follows the shifting paradigm of power from apartheid’s presumption of unity of the state to the rainbow nation’s constitutional declaration that its citizens are “unified in [their] diversity” and equal under the law. In my chapter on Waiting for the Barbarians, I argue that the state creates a fiction of unity which allows the state to invoke claims of emergency and suspend the law; within this suspension, an economy of sacrifice functions to cleanse the state of its misdeeds in the eyes of its citizens. In my second chapter, I argue that Disgrace’s character’s dramatize how legal equality and rituals of reconciliation fail to create unity and instead inscribes the characters into a secular economy of sacrifice and cycles of violent enmity.