{"id":30,"date":"2018-08-08T19:19:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T23:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/?page_id=30"},"modified":"2019-04-19T09:57:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T13:57:53","slug":"12-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/12-13\/","title":{"rendered":"12\/13 | Human Weapons &#8211; April 17, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c5RjdZIkFmM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/h2>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Susan Buck-Morss, <a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/faculty\/susan-buck-morss\/\">CUNY Graduate Center<\/a>, and\u00a0Karuna Mantena, <a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.yale.edu\/people\/karuna-mantena\">Yale University<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">in conversation with<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Seyla Benhabib, <a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.yale.edu\/people\/seyla-benhabib\">Yale University<\/a>, Esteban Perez, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ineteconomics.org\/research\/experts\/EstebanPerez\">United Nations<\/a>, Jes\u00fas Velasco, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jrvelasco.com\">Columbia University<\/a>, and Bernard E. Harcourt, <a href=\"https:\/\/cgt.columbia.edu\/about\/people\/committee-faculty\/bernard-e-harcourt\/\">Columbia University<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">read and discuss<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ebookcentral.proquest.com\/lib\/columbia\/detail.action?docID=1785214#goto_toc\"><em>Starve and Immolate<\/em><\/a> by Banu Bargu<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/12-13\/unnamed-4-4\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4789\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-4789\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/unnamed-4-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"343\" height=\"152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/unnamed-4-2.png 379w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/unnamed-4-2-300x133.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 343px) 100vw, 343px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What makes it possible for a political movement, struggle, or ideal to impress upon any one of us the duty to die for it or worse, for ourselves?<\/p>\n<p>Banu Bargu\u2019s book, <em>Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons\u00a0<\/em>(New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), labors in the furrow of this question. Bargu returns to Foucault\u2019s notion of biopolitics and, more broadly, to his analyses of different forms of power (sovereignty, discipline, security), in order to describe and diagnose a unique type of political practice: the hunger strike, the fast to death, self-mutilation, self-immolation\u2014in her words, <em>the weaponization of life<\/em>. Bargu characterizes this type of praxis as \u201c<em>biosovereignty<\/em>,\u201d a contradictory amalgam of early modern conceptions of sovereignty and of Foucaultian biopolitics, but empowered and augmented by the very interaction between the two. And in reaction to this <em>biosovereignty<\/em>, Bargu identifies the weaponization of life as a new form of resistance\u2014what she calls \u201c<em>necroresistance<\/em>.\u201d Her book navigates between the two. It is located in the space where \u201cthe <em>biopoliticization of sovereignty <\/em>meets the <em>necropoliticization of resistance<\/em>.\u201d (337)<\/p>\n<p>Bargu performs an autopsy of a philosophical nature of the actions that produce death in order to make sense of them and our present political condition. From the perspective of the relation of theory and praxis\u2014the object of our Praxis 13\/13 seminar\u2014Bargu theorizes praxis in order to understand it. Bargu\u2019s theoretical work enriches our understanding not only of how power circulates in society today, but also of how resistance circulates as well, so that we see the resistance as not simply trying to \u201cmake life better\u201d in opposition to <em>biosovereignty<\/em> and the regulation of life, but to implicate and draw out the centrality of death as well.<\/p>\n<p>Theorizing praxis. That seems essential in such a charged context as this, one situated between, on the one hand, the total domination of life in solitary confinement in supermax prisons, and on the other hand, the only remaining weapon to resist the domination, life itself. Theory and praxis. Death fasts and self-immolation. \u00a0To help explore these issues, we are delighted to be joined by two brilliant critical theorists: philosopher Susan Buck-Morss of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.commons.gc.cuny.edu\/faculty\/susan-buck-morss\/\">CUNY Graduate Center<\/a> and political theorist Karuna Mantena of <a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.yale.edu\/people\/karuna-mantena\">Yale University<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Praxis 12\/13!<\/p>\n<p>[Read full post <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-weaponizing-life-an-introduction\/\">here<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a9 Bernard E. Harcourt.]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/12-13\/crowd-shot-april-17\/#main\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4776\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4776 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/crowd-shot-april-17-e1555602082419.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"441\" height=\"244\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/crowd-shot-april-17-e1555602082419.png 1057w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/crowd-shot-april-17-e1555602082419-300x166.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/crowd-shot-april-17-e1555602082419-768x425.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/files\/2019\/04\/crowd-shot-april-17-e1555602082419-1024x567.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Susan Buck-Morss, CUNY Graduate Center, and\u00a0Karuna Mantena, Yale University in conversation with Seyla Benhabib, Yale University, Esteban Perez, United Nations, Jes\u00fas Velasco, Columbia University, and Bernard E. Harcourt, Columbia University read and discuss Starve and Immolate by Banu Bargu What&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/12-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/praxis1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}