Abstract
In his article "The Notion of Life in the Work of Agamben" Carlo Salzani analyzes the notion of "nudity" Giorgio Agamben's understanding of Western culture. Beginning with a reading of the essay "Nudity," in which Agamben proposes an archaeological investigation of the theological apparatus of the concept, Salzani analyzes the pivotal trope in Agamben's Homo Sacer project, "bare" or "naked life," that is, the nudity of life in the grip of sovereign power. Nudity and the nudity of life are construed as a "limit-concept" in a double movement of simultaneous positing and negation or in a positing that grants at the same time the inappropriability of its object. Salzani highlights how much this "liminality" owes to a tradition that borders the aesthetics and ranges from Kant's "sublime" to Heidegger's Ereignis via Benjamin's "expressionless-ness." In Agamben's thought this risks to resemble a "mystical intuition," as he argues in his first book, The Man Without Content, about Kant's aesthetic judgment.
Recommended Citation
Salzani, Carlo.
"The Notion of Life in the Work of Agamben."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
14.1
(2012):
<https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1760>
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