Giorgio Agamben

Giorgio Agamben is one of the most prominent figures in Italian philosophy and political theory. Born in Rome in 1942, he studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Rome, where he completed his doctoral thesis on the thought of Simone Weil. For decades, he was the editor of the Italian edition of the Complete Works of Walter Benjamin. Agamben was a student of Martin Heidegger in the 1960s and shared intellectual paths with thinkers such as Guy Debord, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Walter Benjamin. He has taught at major universities in Europe and America. Central to his thought are the concepts of "state of exception," "form of life," and "homo sacer." He has authored, among others, the following works: "La Potenza del pensiero," Neri Pozza, Vicenza 2005; "Homo Sacer," Einaudi, Torino 1995; "Mezzi senza fine. Note sulla politica," Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 1996; "Quel che resta di Auschwitz," Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 1998; "Il Tempo che resta. Un commento alla Lettera ai Romani," Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2000; "L'aperto, L'uomo e l'animale," Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2002; "Profanazioni," Nottetempo, Roma 2005; with G. Deleuze, "Bartleby, la formula della creazione," Quodlibet, Macerata 1993; and more recently, "Il Regno e la Gloria. Per una genealogia teologica dell'economia e del governo," Neri Pozza, 2007.