Agamben, Arendt and human rights: bearing witness to the human

John Lechte, Saul Newman*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    Abstract

    The key theme in this essay is the rethinking of the human, as inspired by the work of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt. The human here is not a model or concept to be realised, just as community to which the human is linked is not an ideal, but a 'community to come'. This is revealed only by paying dose attention to modes of bearing witness to the human, as instanced, for example, by Agamben's text, Remnants of Auschwitz. Current notions of political community and the human thus need to be reassessed. Only by doing this will it be possible to address the crucial issues that currently confront human rights-issues such as the tension between the principle of universal human rights and that of state sovereignty, the growing problem of statelessness, and the reduction of human rights to biopolitical humanitarianism.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationAgamben and law
    EditorsThanos Zartaloudis
    Place of PublicationLondon ; New York
    PublisherAshgate Publishing
    Chapter22
    Pages429-444
    Number of pages16
    ISBN (Electronic)9781351577274
    ISBN (Print)9781315097497, 9781472428844
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

    Publication series

    NamePhilosophers and Law
    PublisherRoutledge

    Bibliographical note

    First published in 2012 in European Journal of Social Theory 15(4), pp 522-536. DOI: 10.1177/1368431011432376

    Keywords

    • Agamben
    • Arendt
    • Bare life
    • Community
    • Human rights
    • Statelessness
    • The human

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