Poetics of Gesture: Agamben's Biopolitical Criticism

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores the gestural criticism in Agamben's works and elucidates why it belongs to the biopolitical criticism of politics or ethics. This article has three sections. First, it discusses the dimensions of gesture, gag, emptiness, and pure medium, and then points out that gestural criticism's revolutionary significance in terms of suspending the critical tradition and resetting a new boundary for criticism. Second, it illuminates that gesture is also a key critical concept of Benjamin's, and then discusses the meaning and value of interruption in gesture. Third, this article illustrates that the theory of gesture belongs to biopolitical criticism. This article concludes that gesture is fundamental to Agamben's critical thought, which indicates a turn from aesthetic criticism to biopolitical criticism.

Key words: Agamben, Benjamin, gesture, biopolitical criticism

Zhi Yunbo . Poetics of Gesture: Agamben's Biopolitical Criticism[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art.

References

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