Giorgio Agamben

In Giorgio Agamben’s The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, he evaluates Paul’s letter by taking a close reading of the opening of Romans and then claims that within these treasured words ultimately lies Paul’s messianic philosophy. Each chapter, interestingly, lays out the context and content that each word of the opening means and what Paul was hoping to convey to the Romans. Agamben also presents Benjamin’s Theory on the Philosophy of History side-by-side Paul’s letter, developing their shared characteristics. Agamben talks about Paul not exactly as a believer in Christ the person, but more so Christ the apostle and the event, specifically Christ’s death and resurrection. Moreover, he discusses this event in order…

Francis not only left his family and money, but left himself. Francis was no longer in power of his own life, Jesus was. Saint Francis created an outbreak, and other men wanted to join him. It did not take long for Francis to accept other men. When Francis recruited eleven men, he took them to see the bishop. The goal was to get an approval for their way of life. After a long talk with the bishop, the bishop saw that Francis was not going to stop insisting, so the bishop approved the group.…

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the writing of Giorgio Agamben as it relates to the course theme in regard to the placement of the body in contemporary social theory. More specifically this paper will address Agamben’s writing of Sovereign Power and Bare Life and the distinction between the natural being and the legal existence of a person. First in Part I, I will provide a summary of Sovereign Power and Bare Life, and identify Agamben 's central thesis. In Part…

began to use paper more and more to draw (Bambach,“ Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function”). Artists prepared their paintings or sculptures with quick drawings. Since the drawings were done quickly, very little detail was captured, but, was done to get a broad idea of where to begin. It allowed viewers to see the creative thinking process of the artist as well. This is why I would like to discuss Giorgio Vasari’s Calvary Skirmish and how it illustrates a creative thinking process. It was…

many years. Because of many foreign powers, it caused for there to be a lack of art within Italy. Art was renewed around 1910 by Futurists artists such as Filipo Marinetti, Umberto Boccionni, and Giacomo Balla. Futurism is the most important Avant- garde art movement of the 20th century. Futurism celebrated advanced technology. “Committed to the new, its members wished to destroy older forms of culture and to demonstrate the beauty of modern life- the beauty of machine, speed, violence, and…

Giorgio Agamben begins his book, The Highest Poverty, discussing the concept of time and rule. He analyzes the origins and transformations of rule over time and how it has come to govern human life. In possibly one of the greatest forms of “ruling”, there is the construct of time. While rule, controls the people by telling them what they can and cannot do, time tells them when they can or cannot do things. In present day, we are ruled by time, when to eat, when to get up, how much sleep to get,…

After Al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the United Sates felt it time to punish those responsible so as to ensure another attack would not be forthcoming. The CIA began “enhanced interrogation of detainees”; in other words, the torture of people believed to have information about the enemy. Here, I examine the reduction of a human being who lived a bios life and became a detainee whose life changed suddenly to zoe and therefore became homo sacer. The life of an individual…

Jouvé in his account of the executions, both highlight the responsibility they have and feel now, years after, in the assassination of their comrades. After this, the big question is: what is the alternative? If 20th century revolutionary political movements committed these kinds of crimes in fighting fascism and totalitarianism, there seems to be no escape from these two positions. In the following pages I will try to read this contradiction posed by both Jouvé and Del Barco not with the…

The story of Scottie and Judy in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo seems like the typical Hollywood romantic thriller: a man falls in love with an imposter and must come to terms with her deception when her true identity is revealed. Having spent the majority of the film getting to know a blond hair female in a light grey dress, Scottie seems to have fallen in love with Madeleine whose features he sees daily rather than, Judy, the actress. By playing Madeleine, Judy turns her own body into a unique…

conversion to Christianity. In the end Custance makes it home and beseeches her father “Send me namoore unto noon hethenesse” (1112). Once again the other is created, this time in the foreigner. The other of the foreigner is also depicted in Wonders of the East. Many of the illustrations show foreigners as monstrous creatures. In the colony of Locotheo “Men are born…fifteen feet tall, and they have a white body and two faces on one head, feet and knees very red and a long nose and dark hair”…