Eugene asks about Georgio Agamben. Below is a short note on him. I find
his writings on the state les interesting and useful than his return to
the question of commodity fetishism, which is a refreshing revisiting of a
neglected concept. On the state, his approach seems more philological than
But a part of me is also wondering if this isn't always the case; if the
notion that political sovereignty functions through a permanent state of
exception/emergency is simply a constitutive part of the way that 'the body
politic' has been formulated since Plato (I was thinking of Plato's
