Giorgio Agamben

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben takes a close look at why the sense of taste has not historically been appreciated as a means to know and experience pleasure, or why it has always been considered inferior to actual theoretical knowledge. Taste, Agamben argues, is a category that has much to reveal to the contemporary world. Taking a step into the history...

Agamben is the rare writer whose ideas and works have a broad appeal across many fields, and Nymphs will engage not only the author's devoted fans in philosophy, legal theory, sociology, and literary criticism but also his growing audience among art theorists and historians as well. In 1900, art historians André Jolles and Aby Warburg constructed an experimental dialogue in...

An inquiry into the origins of language and articulation, exploring how the transformation of the human voice shaped history, politics, and thought. What does it mean to have a voice—and how does it shape what it means to be human? In The Human Voice, Giorgio Agamben embarks on a profound exploration of how the human voice transforms from mere sound...

What is at stake in that form of inquiry that the western philosophical tradition has called first philosophy or metaphysics? Is it an abstract, now outmoded branch of philosophy, or does it address a problem that is still of great interest—namely the unity of western knowledge? In fact, metaphysics is "first" only in relation to the other two sciences that...

Essays by a provocative Italian philosopher on memory and oblivion, on what is lost and what remains. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has always been an original reader of texts, understanding their many rich historical, aesthetic, and political meanings and effects. In Profanations, Agamben has assembled for the first time some of his most pivotal essays on photography, the novel,...

A rare autobiographical glimpse into the life and influences of one of Europe's greatest living philosophers. This book's title, Self-Portrait in the Studio—a familiar iconographic subject in the history of painting—is intended to be taken literally: the book is a self-portrait, but one that comes into view for the reader only by way of patient scrutiny of the images, photographs,...

A brief study of select Western art from Italy's foremost philosopher. In Renaissance palaces, the studiolo was a small room to which the prince withdrew to meditate or read, surrounded by paintings he particularly loved. This book is a kind of studiolo for its author, Giorgio Agamben, as he turns his philosophical lens on the world of Western art. Studiolo...

In a tour-de-force reinterpretation of the Christian tradition, Agamben shows that the Garden of Eden has always served as a symbol for humanity's true nature. What happened to paradise after Adam and Eve were expelled? The question may sound like a theological quibble, or even a joke, but in The Kingdom and the Garden, Giorgio Agamben uses it as a...

A patient, genealogical investigation of the dichotomies that are foundational to the Western philosophical tradition. We are so used to distinguishing between the possible and the real, between essence and existence, that we do not realise these distinctions, which seem so obvious to us, are the result of a long and laborious process that has led to the splitting of...

Two months after the attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration, in the midst of what it perceived to be a state of emergency, authorised the indefinite detention of noncitizens suspected of terrorist activities and their subsequent trials by a military commission. Here, distinguished Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben uses such circumstances to argue that this unusual extension of power, or state...

An engaging collection of late-life reflections and quick thoughts, a book unlike any other Agamben book. What can the senses of an attentive philosopher see, hear, and learn that can, in turn, teach us about living better lives? Perhaps it’s less a matter of asking what and more a matter of asking how. These latest reflections from Italy’s foremost philosopher...

Giorgio Agamben tackles our crisis-ridden world in a series of powerful philosophical essays. When the House Burns Down – From the Dialect of Thought poses a critical question: “Which house is burning?” asks Giorgio Agamben. “The country where you live, or Europe, or the whole world? Perhaps the houses, the cities have already burnt down—who knows how long ago?—in a...

One of Europe’s greatest living philosophers, Giorgio Agamben, analyses the life and work of one of Europe’s greatest poets, Friedrich Hölderlin. What does it mean to inhabit a place or a self? What is a habit? And, for human beings, doesn’t living mean—first and foremost—inhabiting? Pairing a detailed chronology of German poet Friedrich Hölderlin’s years of purported madness with a...

A richly illustrated analysis from one of Europe’s greatest living philosophers. In Pinocchio, Giorgio Agamben turns his keen philosopher’s eye to the famous nineteenth-century novel by Carlo Collodi. To Agamben, Pinocchio’s adventures are a kind of initiation into life itself. Like us, the mischievous puppet is caught between two worlds. He is faced with the alternatives of submitting to authority...

Hölderlin’s Madness – Chronicle of a Dwelling Life, 1806–1843 by Giorgio Agamben, translated by Alta L. Price, explores the profound questions surrounding existence through the lens of one of Europe's greatest poets, Friedrich Hölderlin. Agamben, one of Europe's revered philosophers, provides an insightful analysis of Hölderlin's life and work. What does it mean to inhabit a place or a self?...

An erudite exploration of transgressive language from the Renaissance by one of Europe's greatest living philosophers. The Body of Language explores how early modern authors broke linguistic boundaries, creating new words and languages that challenged traditional grammar and lexicon, providing historical insight into today's debates on the politics of language. Through a scholarly analysis by Giorgio Agamben, the text delves...

Internationally renowned philosopher Giorgio Agamben's bold redefinition of methodological inquiry into the human sciences The Signature of All Things is Giorgio Agamben's sustained reflection on method. To reflect on method implies for Agamben an archeological vigilance: a persistent form of thinking whose path is to expose, examine, and elaborate that which remains obscure, unthematised, even unsaid, in an author's thought....

An essential reevaluation of the proper role of politics in contemporary life. In this critical rethinking of the categories of politics within a new sociopolitical and historical context, the distinguished political philosopher Giorgio Agamben builds on his previous work to address the status and nature of politics itself. Bringing politics face-to-face with its own failures of consciousness and consequence, Agamben...

A brief study of select Western art from Italy’s foremost philosopher. In Renaissance palaces, the studiolo was a small room to which the prince withdrew to meditate or read, surrounded by paintings he particularly loved. This book is a kind of studiolo for its author, Giorgio Agamben, as he turns his philosophical lens on the world of Western art. Studiolo...