POLS 070. Biopower and Biopolitics

How did life itself become an object of politics? In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that the modern era is marked by an important transformation in the exercise of power. Sovereign power, understood as the power to "take life or let live" has been gradually supplanted by biopower aimed at "fostering life or disallowing it to the point of death." This shift has been accompanied by strategies to strengthen the body politic through social regulation and the calculated management of life. In the first part of this course we will examine the concept of biopower as developed by Foucault in his writings and lectures at the College de France. These works have had a wide-ranging influence in political theory and beyond. The notion of biopower has been central to contemporary inquiries into the securitization of borders, political asylum and deportation, disaster management, biotechnology and genetics, organ donation and surrogate motherhood, drone warfare, suicide bombing and the weaponization of life, and how socio-economic and racial hierarchies influence the differential distribution of death. We will explore these issues in subsequent sessions through the works of Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt, Talal Asad, Judith Butler, Achille Mbembe, Anne Phillips, Paul Rabinow, Nikolas Rose and others in an effort to connect theoretical arguments about the articulation of sovereign power to real world examples of what Rabinow and Rose have termed "strategies for governing life." During the course of the semester, students will develop independent research projects based on their own areas of interest.
Social Sciences.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: Political Science
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/political-science

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