Agamben and the Existentialists

While Giorgio Agamben's work has not previously been categorised as existentialist, his work creatively repackages important existentialist themes in a politico-theological context. This collection of essays offers creative new ways of considering Agamben's critique of the sovereign exception, as well as other existentialist themes, including feminism and postcolonialism. The international range of contributors each challenge, complicate or reimagine Agamben's reading of the sovereign exception, which appears among the writings of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Fanon, Kafka, Dostoevsky and others in both theistic and atheistic forms.Divided into three sections Agamben and the Sovereign Exception, Agamben and the Death of God and Existentialist Themes in Agamben this collection re-introduces Agamben as an unacknowledged existentialist philosopher who takes the major themes and concepts of existentialism in a startling new direction.

The Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben is not usually seen as an existentialist philosopher. But now, this volume shows how his work creatively repackages important existentialist themes in a politico-theological context. Divided into three sections – 'Agamben and the Sovereign Exception', 'Agamben and the Death of God' and 'Existentialist Themes in Agamben' – this collection challenges, complicates and reimagines Agamben’s critique of the sovereign exception and other existentialist themes including feminism and postcolonialism.