Terms of the political community, immunity, biopolitics

the long version

Terms of the Political presents a decade of thought about the origins and possibilities of political theory from one of contemporary Italy's most prolific and engaging political theorists. Roberto Esposito has coined a number of critical concepts in current debates about the past, present, and future of biopolitics-from his work on the implications of the etymological and philosophical kinship of community (communitas) and immunity (immunitas) to his theorizations of the impolitical and the impersonal. Taking on interlocutors from throughout the Western philosophical tradition, from Aristotle and Augustine to Weil, Arendt, Nancy, Foucault, and Agamben, Esposito announces the eclipse of a modern political lexicon-"freedom," "democracy," "sovereignty," and "law"-that, in its attempt to protect human life, has so often produced the opposite (violence, melancholy, and death). An invaluable introduction to the breadth and rigor of Esposito's thought, the book will also be welcomed by readers already familiar with Esposito's characteristic skill in overturning and breaking open the language of politics.