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SCHOOL OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Held in conjunction with the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science SEMESTER ONE RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES MONDAY 2ND MARCH 2020 [https://mcusercontent.com/377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0/images/a7177bac-fb65-4f78-8b27-6d2787f8d1d6.jpg] Associate Professor Maurizio Meloni Deakin University Maurizio Meloni is a social theorist and a science and technology studies scholar. Revitalizing the History of Biopolitics: Porous Bodies, Environmental Biopower, and the Politics of Life in Ancient Rome The case for an unprecedented penetration of life mechanisms into the politics of Western modernity has been a cornerstone of twentieth-century social theory. Working with and beyond Foucault, this paper challenges established views about the history of biopower by focusing on ancient medical writings and practices of corporeal permeability. Through an analysis of three Roman institutions: a) bathing; b) urban architecture; and c) the military, it shows that technologies aimed at fostering and regulating life did exist in Classical antiquity at the scale of population. The paper highlights zones of indistinction between natural and political processes, zoē and bíos, that are not captured by a view of destructive incorporation of or over life by sovereign power (Agamben) or are otherwise lost in polarized views of antiquity as rigidly divided between a private and a public sphere (Arendt). It points also to a much more substantial evidence for the government of the collective body of citizens and their health than Foucault assumed in his writings on pagan antiquity (1985, 1990). In conclusion, I argue that unlike the modernistic instrumentalization of bodies and nature, ancient biopower is a heterogeneous assemblage of sensitive bodies, cosmological powers, and material devices. It is an enchanted cosmobiopolitics of humans and non-humans alike that may be theoretically significant for contemporary rediscovery of the agential power of things and tropes of biological plasticity in post-liberal and post-humanist view of politics. WHERE: LEVEL 5 FUNCTION ROOM F23 NEW ADMINISTRATION BUILDING WHEN: MONDAY 2nd March 2020 START: 5.30PM All Welcome | No Booking Required | Free Copyright © *2016* *HPS, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences<https://sydney.us9.list-manage.com/profile?u=377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0&id=61ae597b5c&e=> or unsubscribe from this list<https://sydney.us9.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0&id=61ae597b5c&e=&c=39da056c03> This email was sent to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> why did I get this?<https://sydney.us9.list-manage.com/about?u=377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0&id=61ae597b5c&e=&c=39da056c03> unsubscribe from this list<https://sydney.us9.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0&id=61ae597b5c&e=&c=39da056c03> update subscription preferences<https://sydney.us9.list-manage.com/profile?u=377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0&id=61ae597b5c&e=> Unit for History and Philosophy of Science · University of Sydney · Sydney, NSW 2006 · Australia [Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp]<http://www.mailchimp.com/monkey-rewards/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=monkey_rewards&aid=377ed99b00666e1febb7dbbc0&afl=1>
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