Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer Series: A Critical Introduction and Guide

• The first introductory text to Giorgio Agamben’s 9-volume magnum opus, the Homo Sacer series
• Unpacks Agamben's central concepts, introducing them to new readers of the series and adding nuance for readers more versed in Agamben's philosophy

Requiring no prior knowledge of the series, Colby Dickinson explains why Agamben’s Homer Sacer is one of the most significant philosophical texts of the past century. He explores key concepts including sovereignty, potentiality, form-of-life, the state of exception, inoperativity, glory and the messianic as they appear and reappear throughout the series.

In Homo Sacer, Agamben provides a delicate and complex interweaving of his views on a wide range of themes including sovereignty, and the state of exception, the Aristotelean distinction between potentiality and actuality, through to the impossibility of stating the existence of language in words and the form-of-life lived beyond all forms of law.