"The Biopolitical Subject of Sovereignty and Resistance" - Workshop mit Banu Bargu
February 23rd, 11 am to 5 pm
Research Training Group Self-Making, Oldenburg University, room A3-1-109 The workshop addresses the tensions and intersections between sovereignty, biopolitics, and resistance and interrogates this nexus in light of the question of the subject. In the first part we will focus on theories of sovereignty and subjectivity in the history of Western political thought and discuss some of their most important renderings in political theory. Thinkers discussed will include Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Marx. In the second part we will relate the canonical texts to contemporary approaches stressing the dimensions of resistance and corporeality. Of interest will be the examination of Michel Foucault's notions of biopower/biopolitics, alongside Achille Mbembe's necropower/necropolitics and Banu Bargu's own work on biosovereignty and necroresistance. Finally there will be room to discuss how these concepts relate to participants' ongoing research. The first part will start with an overview presentation by Banu Bargu (a list of optional background readings will be provided shortly), the second part will be based on the following readings: 1a) Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France (1975-76). Translated by David Macey. New York: Picador, 2003. --> 11 March 1976, p. 239-263 = 1b) ———. In Verteidigung der Gesellschaft: Vorlesungen am Collège de France (1975-76). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001. --> 17. März 1976, S. 282-311. 2a) ———. An Introduction. Vol. I. of The history of sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. --> p. 135-145 = 2b) ———. La volonté de savoir. Tome I de Histoire de la sexualité. Paris: Gallimard, 1976. --> p. 177-191 = ———. Der Wille zum Wissen. Bd. 1. von Sexualität und Wahrheit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983. --> first half of ch. V (book available @GK) 3) Mbembé, J.-A., und Libby Meintjes. „Necropolitics“. Public Culture 15, Nr. 1 (25. März 2003): 11–40. 4) Bargu, Banu. Starve and Immolate. New York: Columbia Univ Press, 2016. --> Introduction and ch. 1 "Biosovereignty and Necroresistance", p. 1-86
External participants please contact:

One more recommendation by Banu Bargu: If people have not read Agamben's Homo Sacer, it also directly speaks to this constellation. I engage with it quite extensively, so there is a reconstruction in my Ch. 1. But if people would like to read the original, I'd be happy to suggest pages.