Jessica Whyte, Catastrophe and redemption

Academic interest in the thought of Giorgio Agamben has increased almost exponentially in recent years. This popularity has been tied to the fact that Agamben’s work appeared to be remarkably prescient. When Agamben declared in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life that “it is not the city but rather the camp that is the fundamental biopolitical paradigm of the West,” he appeared to predict the events of the War on Terror, the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay and black sites around the world, and the emergency powers passed in many Western states to limit civil liberties and human rights. (Homo Sacer, Stanford University Press, 1998, 181)

Jessica Whyte notes in her introduction to Catastrophe and Redemption: The Political Thought of Giorgio Agamben both the fact that reception of Agamben’s work has been tied up with these outside events, and that this coincidence led to the obscuring of the underlying philosophical claims in his work. (3) Whyte’s study focuses on two main issues. Firstly, this volume seeks to explore the redemptive element of his thought. Agamben contends that our time is making possible a new politics which can free human life from sovereign power. (3) Within this book, Whyte does engage critically with familiar tropes in Agamben’s thought: the camp, his writings on Auschwitz and the Muselmann, the state of exception, biopolitics, and the influence of both messianism and Martin Heidegger. Importantly though, Whyte does not simply provide a recounting or a defence of Agamben’s thought. In fact, she offers a very important addition to the secondary literature on his thought. Whyte focuses her criticism on what she identifies as the real weakness to his political thought, namely his tendency to see the intensification of the catastrophe of the present as the path to redemption. (3) This volume skilfully weaves together Agamben’s thought with the author’s own voice and argument. Whyte can be said to be inspired by Agamben’s philosophical project, but differs from Agamben in clear ways, and extends his project in new directions. The volume therefore would serve both as a clear introduction to Agamben’s thought for scholars and students interested in one of the leading lights in Continental philosophy today. It would also appeal to scholars well versed in Agamben’s thought, as it offers a connection between the thought of Agamben and Marxism that offers scope for development in future scholarship.