Date:               Tuesday 6 August
Time:              1 p.m.
Venue:           Morven Brown 310, University of NSW (map reference C20: 
(1.7MB)<http://www.facilities.unsw.edu.au/Maps/pdf/kensington.pdf>)


Dr Dimitris Vardoulakis (UWS)



The Unsaveables: Sovereignty and Biopolitics in the 18th Brumaire



I approach the 18th Brumaire from a double trajectory. First, I examine its 
relation to how the exception was thought in the work of Carl Schmitt and 
Walter Benjamin’s response to it. Second, I analyze the ways in which the rise 
of Bonaparte to power was carried out through forms of regulating the behaviour 
of those sections of the population who supported him. A key insight in Marx’s 
analysis, according my reading, is that every time society is “saved” the 
circle of power contracts. The question I pose, then, is whether it is possible 
to identify anyone who is “unsaveable” – in other words, anyone who resists the 
workings of sovereign power.

Dimitris Vardoulakis is senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of 
Western Sydney. His books include the monographs The Doppelganger: Literature’s 
Philosophy (2010), and Sovereignty and its Other: Toward the Dejustifications 
of Violence (2013), both with Fordham UP. He is also the editor of the volume 
Spinoza Now (U of Minnesota P, 2011).


Coordinator:
Dr Joanne Faulkner, [email protected]
Philosophy, School of Humanities and Languages


Dr Joanne Faulkner
ARC DECRA Research Fellow
School of Humanities
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Room 338, Morven Brown Building
University of New South Wales
Kensington, NSW 2052
Australia

[email protected]
+61 2 9385 2287
https://hal.arts.unsw.edu.au/about-us/people/joanne-faulkner/<http://humanities.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/joanne-faulkner-633.html>
http://unsw.academia.edu/JoanneFaulkner

Co-Government/Institutional Representative, Australasian Society for 
Continental Philosophy: http://www.ascp.org.au

Ordinary Member of Council, Australasian Association of Philosophy: 
http://aap.org.au/

Branch Vice-President, UNSW Branch of the NTEU, National Tertiary Education 
Industry Union: http://www.nteu.edu.au
NTEU Office Tel: +61 2 9385 2479, email: 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
_______________________________________________
SydPhil mailing list: http://bit.ly/sydphil

New archive: http://bit.ly/SydPhilArchive

To UNSUBSCRIBE, change your MEMBERSHIP OPTIONS, find ANSWERS TO COMMON 
PROBLEMS, or visit our ONLINE ARCHIVES, please go to the LIST INFORMATION PAGE: 
http://bit.ly/sydphil ... and if you can't get to that page, try the EMERGENCY 
PAGE: http://bit.ly/SydPhilEmergency

Reply via email to