C: Biopolitics,听Hegemony, Multitude (Convenor:听Prof Geoffrey Kantaris)
This seminar focuses on modern (and postmodern) developments in theories of power, from discipline, hegemony and biopolitics to the purported biopower of 鈥渨e, the multitude鈥�, with our contemporary forms of networked, immaterial or 鈥渁ffective鈥� labour. We will look at the evolution of Foucault鈥檚 thought on the modern intersection of disciplinary power and biopolitical forms of governmentality, alongside the parallel evolution of Gramsci鈥檚 concept of hegemony, and their confluence in the contemporary political theories of Hardt and Negri (Empire and Multitude). In mapping out these evolutions of power and its dissemination throughout the social body and the cultural field, we will also engage critically with Agamben鈥檚 work on 鈥渂are life鈥�, Esposito鈥檚 account of the 鈥渋mmunization paradigm鈥�, Mbembe鈥檚 extrapolation of biopolitics into the realm of necropolitics, or the politics of death, and the possible rise of a 鈥減osthegemonic鈥� political order. Furthermore, we shall be looking at the contestation of some of these theories by the likes of Jacques Ranci猫re, Slavoj Zizek, and by critical race theorists who have sought to flesh out the hidden blindspots of the biopolitical paradigm.Throughout we shall keep a keen eye on the application of these ideas to the realm of cultural studies, and you will be encouraged to bring to the table your own examples of texts and films that are working through these profound political mutations of the socio-political order in the modern era.
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There is a cap of 10 students on this seminar.
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Session 1 鈥� Modalities of modern power: discipline, hegemony, control
- Michel Foucault, 鈥淭he Body of the Condemned鈥�, 鈥淒ocile Bodies鈥� and first 10 pages of 鈥淧anopticism鈥�, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995 [1975]), pp. 3-31, 135-69, 195-204.
- Antonio Gramsci, Extracts from Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971 [1929-35]). Extracts focused on the concept of hegemony and intellectuals.
- Gilles Deleuze, 鈥淧ostscript on the Societies of Control鈥�, October 59 [Winter 1992], pp. 3-7.
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Session 2 鈥� Biopolitics, necropolitics and bare life
- Michel Foucault, 鈥淭he Right of Death and the Power over Life鈥�, History of Sexuality Vol I., from Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze, eds., Biopolitics: A Reader (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013), pp. 41-60.
- Giorgio Agamben, 鈥淚ntroduction鈥�, 鈥淭he Politicization of Life鈥�, 鈥淏iopolitics and the Rights of Man鈥�, 鈥淭hreshold鈥�, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998 [1995]), pp. 1-12, 119-35, 181-88.
- Achille Mbembe, 鈥淣ecropolitics鈥�, Public Culture 15.1, pp.11-40.
- Roberto Esposito, 鈥淚ntroduction鈥�, 鈥淭he Enigma of Biopolitics鈥�, Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy, trans. Timothy Campbell, Posthumanities # 4 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), pp. 3-44.
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Session 3 鈥� Empire, affective labour and biopower
- Antonio Negri, 鈥淭he Labor of the Multitude and the Fabric of Biopolitics鈥�, Mediations 23.2 (Spring 2008), pp. 8-25.
- Michael Hardt, 鈥淎ffective Labour鈥�, Boundary2 26.2 (Summer 1999), pp. 89-100.
- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Extracts from Empire (海角社区, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. xi-xvii, 22-66, 280-303.
- Slavoj Zizek, 鈥淏lows Against the Empire鈥�, Bodies Without Organs: On Deleuze and Consequences (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 195-202.
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Session 4 鈥� Multitude, Posthegemony, and Surveillance Capitalism
- Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Extracts from Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (London: Penguin Books, 2004): 鈥楻esistance鈥� pp. 63-95, 鈥楳ultitude鈥� 99-102, and 鈥楾he Wealth of the Poor (Or 鈥榃e are the Poors!鈥�) 129-40.
- Jacques Ranci猫re, 鈥淭he People or the Multitudes?鈥�, 鈥淏iopolitics or Politics?鈥�, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics (London: Continuum, 2010), pp. 84-96.
- Alexander G. Weheliye, 鈥楤are Life: The Flesh鈥� and 鈥楻acism: Biopolitics鈥� in Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014) pp. 33-45; 53-73.
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