Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
Agamben and Transna0onal American Studies
Nirmal Trivedi, PhD
American Studies Associa0on San Antonio, TX
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
State of Exception. 2005. Homo Sacer. 1998.
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
“The excep0on is a kind of exclusion. What is excluded from the general rule is an individual case. But the most proper characteris0c of the excep0on is that what is excluded in it is not, on account of being excluded, absolutely without rela0on to the rule. On the contrary, what is excluded in the excep0on maintains itself in rela0on to the rule in the form of the rule's suspension. The rule applies to the excep0on in no longer applying, in withdrawing from it. The state of excep0on is thus not the chaos that precedes order but rather the situa0on that results from its suspension.”
-‐-‐Agamben, Homo Sacer
State of Excep-on
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
“The cold war state aLenuated the reach of the subject's responsibility to loyalty to the state, and it demanded that other na0ons be construed as either friends or enemies of the state. But aNer the state declared itself in a permanent cold war, the Other to the na0on was doubled as well—into the Enemy of the State and the emergency powers that the state itself must exercise to defend the people against the threat. ”
-‐-‐Pease, The New American Excep4onalism
State of Excep-on -‐ Pease
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
“Whilst in an interna0onal sense Porto [sic] Rico was not a foreign country since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United States, it was foreign to the United States in a domes0c sense because the island had not been incorporated….”
-‐-‐Downes v. Bidwell (1901)
State of Excep-on -‐ Kaplan
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
Cherokee Na-on v. State of Georgia (1831)
“Do the Cherokees cons4tute a foreign state in the sense of the Cons4tu4on?”
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
Zone of Indis-nc-on
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
“Homo Sacer”
“What is new about President Bush's order is that it radically erases any legal status of the individual, thus producing a legally unnamable and unclassifiable being. Not only do the Taliban captured in Afghanistan not enjoy the status of POWs as defined by the Geneva Conven0on, they do not even have the status of persons charged with a crime according to American laws.”
-‐-‐ Agamben, State of Excep4on
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
Ong, Aihwa. Neoliberalism as Excep4on: Muta4ons in Ci4zenship and Sovereignty. 2006.
Zones
Agamben and Transna-onal American Studies American Studies Associa0on 2010, San Antonio, TX
Nirmal H. Trivedi Georgia Ins0tute of Technology
Ques-ons
• Consequences of refocusing our study of transna0onalism to ques0ons of sovereignty rather than na0onalism?
• What is a transna0onal subject?