State of Exception (retranslated edition)

 

Giorgio Agamben is one of the most original and critical continental philosophers today. His reinterpretation of concepts such as sovereignty, state of exception, biopolitics, bare life, camp, and forms of life has become a shared theoretical resource in the humanities and social sciences.

 

In this book, he undertakes a historical and philosophical genealogical examination of the "state of exception," tracing its evolution from the ancient Roman concepts of "suspension of law," dictatorship, and authority, through the disordered festivals of the Middle Ages, all the way to the states of siege, martial law, emergency powers, and "constitutional dictatorship" that emerged after the French Revolution. On a theoretical level, he reconstructs the "hidden" debate between Schmitt and Benjamin to propose a crucial distinction between the sovereign "fictitious state of exception" and the emancipatory "real state of exception."

 

The author argues that Western politics has, since ancient times, used the concept-institutional apparatus of the state of exception to maintain the hidden connection between law and violence, and between law and life. In extreme cases, it even sets violence and life itself as the origin of law – clear examples include wars of independence and revolutionary constitution-making, anti-terrorism and anti-pandemic "wars." For Taiwan, which has long been under military threat, international isolation, and internal division, the connection between the history of the state of exception and the predicament of being a "state" of exception is even more worthy of our repeated reflection.

 

This book was published in 2003, at the height of the War on Terror; twenty years later, the world has just endured a long century-long pandemic/struggle, once again making "state of exception" a popular keyword. This translation has been re-translated by the original translator based on the Italian original, and includes a new translator's preface, as well as a revised lengthy co-authored introduction.