Cultures of Life:

Authority and Power in Modernity

Department of Sociology / University of Warwick

SO9B2 / MA Module / Spring 2019

Convener: Dr Stephen D Seely / s.seely@warwick.ac.uk

1
 Introduction to the Module

Welcome to Cultures of Life: Authority and Power in Modernity! This module handbook is also
online so that you can access it from anywhere, and so that we can add additional materials
and resources as go. Here you will find the seminar schedule, reading list and assessment
instructions.

In this module, we will investigate the relationship between life and power in modernity. The
module is comprised of two parts. In part one, we will focus on the two theorists who are
credited with having first analyzed the essence of modern power as a politics of ‘life itself’ (or
‘biopolitics’): German philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and French philosopher Michel
Foucault (1926-1984). Through close readings and discussions of their key works, we will
explore the historical emergence of the biopolitical attachment of life and power while also
reflecting on the contemporary relevance and application of their ideas. In the second half of
the course, we will extend the theoretical coordinates of Arendt’s and Foucault’s analyses to
think about how other vectors of modern power—(1) colonization; (2) technology; (3) death,
debility, and disposability; and (4) nonhuman forces—work with and against the politics of life
to rearticulate the relationship between life and power.

2
 Seminar Schedule
Date Set Reading Topic Presentations
Mon
1 None Module Introduction ---
Jan 7

PART I – Theories of Power and Modernity

Claire Blencowe, ‘Biopolitical Authority, Objectivity & the Theories of Biopolitics

Mon
2 Groundwork of Modern Citizenship’ and the Nature of Stephen
Jan 14
Modern Power

Modern Power Beyond

Mon Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Ch. 9
3 Nation States and Human TBD
Jan 21
Rights

Mon Life as a Political Problem

4 Hannah Arendt, excerpts from The Human Condition Jiaxing
Jan 28 I (Labour, Work, Action)
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Ch 5
Mon AND Life as a Political Problem
5 Jessica
Feb 4 Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended, Ch. 11 II (Sex, Race, Health)

Mon
6 NO MEETING – READING WEEK -- --
Feb 11
Michel Foucault, ‘Governmentality’ Modern Technologies of
Mon Joy
7 AND Power I: Measurement,
Feb 18 Josh
François Ewald, ‘Norms, Discipline and the Law’ Norms, Reason
PART II: Extending the Frame of Biopolitics
Sylvia Wynter, ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of
Mon
Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After The ‘Underside’ of Qingyu
8 Feb 25
Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument” Biopolitics I: Coloniality Hsin-Yi

Gilles Deleuze, ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control’

Modern Technologies of
Mon AND Christopher
9 Mar 4 Power II: Modulation, Mark
Antoinette Rouvroy & Thomas Berns, ‘Algorithmic
Algorithms, Affect Robert
Governmentality and Prospects of Emancipation’

Achille Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’ The ‘Underside’ of

Mon Helen
AND Biopolitics II: Death,
10 Mar 11 Sam
Jasbir Puar, ‘The “Right” to Maim: Disablement and Debility, Disposability Finn
Inhumanist Biopolitics in Palestine’

3
 Module Organisation
Contact Details
Dr Stephen D Seely
D1.29 Social Sciences Building
s.seely@warwick.ac.uk

Advice and feedback hours will be held Mondays (3:00-4:00) and Thursdays (11:00-12:00). I am
also available to meet by appointment and am of course happy to answer any questions about
the module by email with 24 hours’ notice.

Summative Assessment
Assessed essay due Monday 26 April 2019. The required word count is 4000 (exclusive of notes
and references). More information will be posted in due course, but the essay will require you
to theorize a contemporary site of biopolitics (of your choice) using the material from the
course. Topics you might choose include: the migrant ‘crisis,’ austerity policies, police brutality,
reproductive politics, sexuality, war, the bioeconomy, new technologies, medical epidemics,
ecological politics, etc.

Seminar Organisation
Reading
The set reading is compulsory and a pre-requisite for your participation in the seminar. I
strongly recommend keeping a notebook in which you keep track of questions, themes, points
of interest and critiques of the readings throughout the course. This will help encourage more
engaged participation and will greatly aid you in writing your final essay.

The further reading lists are designed to help guide you in pursuing independent research.
Further reading doesn’t mean that you need to read everything on the list, nor that you should
necessarily read entire books cover-to-cover, but these lists will give you a broader picture of
the debates and arguments surrounding the topics we are covering and can also serve as
preliminary bibliographies for your final essay.

Weekly Presentations
Some weeks will include a student presentation. Students will be allocated to the week (topic)
that they are nominally most interested in. The presentation should be a minimum of 10
minutes long. You may use PowerPoint or handouts but these are not compulsory. The
presentations will consist of an outline of the key points and arguments from one of the texts
in the further reading list respective to the allocated week, including your interpretation of the
text, contemporary examples, connections to other theorists, and questions for discussion.

4
 Week 2: Theories of Biopolitics and the Nature of Modern Power

Required Reading
Blencowe, C. (2013) ‘Biopolitical Authority, Objectivity & the Groundwork of Modern
Citizenship.’ Journal of Political Power 6 (1): 9-28.

Further Reading
Agamben, G. (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press.

Anidjar, G. (2011) ‘The Meaning of Life.’ Critical Inquiry 37 (4): 697-723.

Barry, A. et al (1996) Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Rationalities
of Government. University of Chicago Press.

Blencowe, C. (2010) ‘Foucault’s and Arendt’s “insider view” of biopolitics: a critique of

Agamben’ History of the Human Sciences 23 (5): 113-130.

Blencowe, C. (2012) Biopolitical Experience: Foucault, Power, and Positive Critique. Palgrave.

Brown, W. (2015) Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Zone Books.

Campbell, T. & Sitze, A., eds. (2013) Biopolitics: A Reader. Duke University Press.

Clough, P. & Willse, C., eds. (2011) Beyond Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life &
Death. Duke University Press.

Cohen, E. (2008) ‘A Body Worth Having? Or, A System of Natural Governance.’ Theory, Culture
& Society 25 (3): 103-129.

5
Collier, S. (2011) Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics. Princeton UP.

Dean, M. (1999) Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. SAGE.

Derrida, J. (2009) The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press.

Esposito, R. (2012) Terms of the Political: Community, Immunity, Biopolitics. Fordham University
Press.

Foucault, M. (1991) Remarks on Marx. Semiotext(e).

Foucault, M. (1991) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Penguin.

Foucault, M. (2000). Power: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984. New Press. Especially
‘Truth and Juridical Forms’ and ‘The Subject and Power.’

Foucault, M. (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979.
Palgrave.

Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2001) Empire. Harvard University Press.

Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2004) Multitude. Penguin.

Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Harper & Row.
Especially the title essay and ‘The Age of the World Picture.’

Lemke, T. (2011) Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction. NYU Press.

Lemm, V. & Vatter, M. eds (2014) The Government of Life: Foucault, Biopolitics, and
Neoliberalism. Fordham University Press.

Protevi, J. (2009) Political Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic. U of Minnesota Press.

Richter, M., ed. (2018) Biopolitical Governance: Race, Gender, Economy. Rowman & Littlefield.

Tarizzo, D. (2017) Life: A Modern Invention. University of Minnesota Press.

Vaughn-Williams, N. (2017) Europe’s Border Crisis: Biopolitical Security and Beyond. Oxford UP.

Venn, C. (2007) ‘Cultural Theory, Biopolitics, and the Question of Power.’ Theory, Culture &
Society 24 (3): 111-124.

6
 Week 3: Modern Power Beyond Nation States and Human Rights

Required Reading
Arendt, H. (1968) The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt. Ch 9 (pp. 267-302)

Further Reading
Arendt, H. (1970) On Violence. Harcourt.

Arendt, H. (2006) Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. Penguin.

Arendt, H. (2006) Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Penguin

Arendt, H. (2018) Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975. Schocket.

Bernstein, R. (2018) Why Read Hannah Arendt Now? Polity Press.

Benhabib, S. (2011) Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Troubled Times. Polity Press.

Birmingham, P. (2006) Hannah Arendt and Human Rights: The Predicament of Common
Responsibility. Indiana University Press.

Canovan, M. (2008) Hannah Arendt: A Reinterpretation of Her Political Thought. Cambridge

University Press.

Diprose, E. & Ziarek EP. (2018) Arendt, Natality, and Biopolitics: Toward Democratic Plurality
and Reproductive Justice. Oxford University Press.

7
Fassin, D. (2011) Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present Times. University of
California Press.

Gündoğu, A. (2015) Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary
Struggles of Migrants. Oxford University Press.

Honig, B. ed. (1995) Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt. Pennsylvania State University
Press.

King, R. & Stone, D. eds. (2008) Hannah Arendt and the Uses of History: Imperialism, Nation,
Race, and Genocide. Berghahn Books.

Owens, P. (2007) Between War and Politics: International Relations and the Thought of Hannah
Arendt. Oxford University Press.

Villa, D. (1996) Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political. Princeton University Press.

Villa, D. ed. (2000) The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt. Cambridge University Press.

Weizman, E. (2011) The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza.
Verso.

Week 4: Life as a Political Problem I (Labour, Work, Action)

Required Reading
Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press. Prologue, §1-5, 45

(See Further Reading list above)

8
 Week 5: Life as a Political Problem II (Sex, Race, Health)

Required Reading
Foucault, M. (1990) The Will To Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. Part 5 (pp. 133-159).

Foucault, M. (2003) ‘Society Must Be Defended’: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976,
Ch. 11 (pp. 239-263)

Further Reading
Amin, A. (2010) ‘The Remainders of Race’ Theory, Culture & Society 27 (1): 1-23.

Armstrong, D. (1995) ‘The Rise of Surveillance Medicine.’ Sociology of Health & Illness 17 (3):
393-404.

Cohen, E. (2009) A Body Worth Defending: Immunity, Biopolitics, and the Apotheosis of the
Modern Body. Duke University Press.

Davidson, A. (2004) The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of
Concepts. Harvard University Press.

Deutscher, P. (2017) Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason. Columbia University

Press.

Forti, S. (2006) ‘The Biopolitics of Souls: Racism, Nazism, and Plato.’ Political Theory 34 (1): 9-32.

Foucault, M. (2000) ‘The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century’ and ‘The Birth of Social
Medicine’ in Power: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984. New Press.

9
Heckman, S. (1996) Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault. Pennsylvania State Unviersity
Press.

Huffer, L. (2009). Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory. Columbia
University Press.

Massad, J. (2007) Desiring Arabs. University of Chicago Press.

McWhorter, L. (2009) Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America: A Genealogy. University

of Illinois Press.

Metzl, J. & Kirkland, A. (2010) Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality. NYU
Press.

Najmabadi, A. (2013) Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary

Iran. Duke University Press.

Preciado, B. (2013) Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era.
Feminist Press.

Puar, J. (2007) Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Duke University Press.

Repo, J. (2013) ‘The Life Function: The Biopolitics of Sexuality and Race Revisited.’ Theory &
Event 16 (3).

Repo, J. (2017) The Biopolitics of Gender. Oxford University Press.

Roberts, R. (2000) Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty.
Vintage Books.

Roberts, D. (2012) Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Buisness Recreate Race in the
Twenty-First Century. The New Press.

Rose, N. (2006) The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-
First Century. Princeton University Press.

Somerville, S. (2000) Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in
American Culture. Duke University Press.

Weheliye, A. (2014) Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics and Black Feminist
Theories of the Human. Duke University Press.

10
 Week 6: Modern Technologies of Power I: Measurement, Norms, Reason

Required Reading
Foucault, M. (2000) ‘Governmentality’ in Power: The Essential Works of Foucault. New Press.
pp. 201-222.

Ewald, F. (1990) ‘Norms, Discipline, and the Law.’ Representations 30: 138-161.

Further Reading
Beck, U. (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. SAGE.

Burchell, G., ed. (1991) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. University of Chicago
Press.

Canguilhem, G. (1991) The Normal and the Pathological. Zone Books.

Cisney, V. & Morar, N. eds. (2016) Biopower: Foucault and Beyond. University of Chicago Press.

Cooper, M. (2008) Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era. University
of Washington Press.

Desrosières, A. (2002) The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reason. Harvard
University Press.

Foucault, M. (1994) The Order of Things: Archeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage Books.

Foucault, M. (2000) ‘Omnes et Singulatim: Toward a Critique of Political Reason’ and ‘The
Political Technology of Individuals’ in Power: Essential Works of Foucault. New Press.

11
Foucault, M. (2003) Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-1975. Verso.

Foucault, M. (2006) Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1973-1974. Palgrave.

Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-
1978. Palgrave.

Foucault, M. (2016) On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-
1980. Picador.

Hacking, I. (1982) ‘Biopower and the Avalanche of Printed Numbers.’ Humanities in Society 5
(3/4): 279-295.

Kreager, P. (1993) ‘Histories of Demography.’ Population Studies 47: 519-539.

Lakoff, A. (2005) Pharmaceutical Reason: Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry. Cambridge
Unviersity Press.

Lemke, T. (2012) Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique. Routledge.

Lemke, T. (2019) Foucault’s Analysis of Modern Governmentality: A Critique of Political Reason.

Verso.

Porter, T. (1995) Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science in Public Life. Princeton
University Press

Revel, J. (2009) ‘Identity, Nature, and Life: Three Biopolitical Deconstructions.’ Theory, Culture
& Society 26 (6): 45-54.

Rose, N. (2001) ‘The Politics of Life Itself.” Theory, Culture & Society 18 (6): 1-30.

Terranova, T. (2009) ‘Another Life: The Nature of Political Economy in Foucault’s Genealogy of
Biopolitics.’ Theory, Culture & Society 26 (6): 234-262.

Thacker, E. (2006) The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture. The MIT Press.

Woodward, K. (1999) ‘Statistical Panic.’ Differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 11

(2): 177-203.

12
 Week 7: The ‘Underside’ of Biopolitics I: Coloniality

Required Reading
Wynter, S. (2003) ‘Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the
Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument.’ CR: The New Centennial Review 3
(3): 257-337.

Further Reading
Cesaire, A. (2001) Discourse on Colonialism. Monthly Review Press.

Dussel, E. (2000) ‘Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism.’ Nepantla: Views from South 1 (3):
465-478.

Fanon, F. (2001) The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin.

Ferreira de Silva, D. (2007) Toward a Global Idea of Race. University of Minnesota Press.

Loomba, A. (2015) Colonialism/Postcolonialism. Routledge.

Lowe, L. (2015) The Intimacies of Four Continents. Duke University Press.

Lugones, M. (2007) ‘Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System.’ Hypatia 22 (1):
186-209.

Mahmud, T. (1999) ‘Colonialism and Modern Constructions of Race: A Preliminary Inquiry.’

University of Miami Law Review 53: 1219-1246.

13
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2008) Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity. Duke
University Press.

McKittrick, K., ed. (2015) Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis. Duke University Press.

Mignolo, W. (2011) The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options.
Duke University Press.

Mignolo, W. & Escobar, A. eds. (2013) Globalization and the Decolonial Option. Routledge

Morgensen, SL. (2011) ‘The Biopolitics of Settler Colonialism: Right Here, Right Now.’ Settler
Colonial Studies 1 (1): 52-76.

Morris, R. ed. (2010) Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea. Columbia
University Press.

Quijano, A. (2000) ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and Latin America.’ Nepantla: Views
from South 1 (3): 533-580.

Rivera-Santana, C. (2018) ‘Colonization, coloniality, and bio-power: biopolitics in Queensland,

Australia.’ Cultural Studies 32 (2): 223-239.

Said, E. (1978) Orientalism. Vintage Books.

Stoler, L. (1995). Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the
Colonial Order of Things. Duke University Press.

Thomas, G. (2007) The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power: Pan-African Embodiment and the Erotic
Schemes of Empire. Indiana University Press.

Venn, C. (2009) ‘Neoliberal Political Economy, Biopolitics and Colonialism: A Transcolonial

Genealogy of Inequality.’ Theory, Culture & Society 26 (6): 206-233.

14
 Week 8: Modern Technologies of Power II: Modulation, Algorithms, Affect

Required Reading
Deleuze, G. (1992) ‘Postscript on the Societies of Control.’ October 59: 3-7.

Rouvroy, A. & Berns, T. (2013) ‘Algorithmic Governmentality and Prospects of Emancipation.’ La

Découverte 177: 163-196.

Further Reading
Beer, D. (2016) Metric Power. Palgrave.

Beer, D., ed. (2018) The Social Power of Algorithms. Routledge.

Cheney-Lippold, J. (2011) ‘A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of
Control.’ Theory, Culture & Society 28 (6): 164-181.

Clough, P. (2003) ‘Affect and Control: Rethinking the Body “Beyond Sex and Gender.”’ Feminist
Theory 4 (3): 359-364.

Clough, P. (2018) The User Unconscious: On Affect, Media, and Measure. University of
Minnesota Press.

Connolly, W. (2002) Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed. University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze G. & Guattari, F. (2013) A Thousand Plateaus. Bloomsbury.

Galloway, A. (2006) Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization. The MIT Press.

15
Galloway, A. & Thacker, E. (2007) The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. University of Minnesota
Press.

Han, BC. (2017) Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Verso.

Hui, Y. (2015) ‘Modulation after Control.’ New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics

84-85: 74-91.

Hui, Y. (2016) On the Existence of Digital Objects. University of Minnesota Press.

Massumi, B. (2002) Parables for the Viritual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University
Press.

Massumi, B. (2015) Ontopower: War, Powers, and the State of Perception. Duke University
Press.

Nakamura, L. & Chow-White, P. eds. (2012) Race After the Internet. Routledge.

Noble, SU. (2018) Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press.

Parisi, L. (2004) Abstract Sex: Philosophy, Bio-Technology and the Mutations of Desire.
Continuum.

Rouvroy, A. & Stiegler, B. (2016) ‘The Digital Regime of Truth: From Algorithmic
Governmentality to a New Rule of Law.’ La Deleuziana 3: 6-29.

Stiegler, B. (2013) What Makes Life Worth Living? On Pharmacology. Polity Press.

Terranova, T. (2004) Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age. Pluto Press.

16
 Week 9: The ‘Underside’ of Biopolitics II: Death, Debility, Disposability

Required Reading
Mbembe, A. (2003) ‘Necropolitics.’ Public Culture 15 (1): 11-40.

Puar, J. (2015) ‘The “Right” to Maim: Disablement and Inhumanist Biopolitics in Palestine.’
Borderlands 14 (1): 1-27.

Further Reading
Amar, P. (2013) The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End
of Neoliberalism. Duke University Press.

Berlant, L. (2007) ‘Slow Death: Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency.’ Critical Inquiry 33 (4): 754-
780.

Biehl, J. (2013) Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment. University of California Press.

Butler, J. (2004) Precarious Life: Power of Mourning and Violence. Verso

Butler, J. et al. eds. (2016) Vulnerability in Resistance. Duke University Press.

Decoteau, CL. (2013) Ancestors and Antiretrovirals: The Biopolitics of HIV/AIDS in Post-
Apartheid South Africa. University of Chicago Press.

Farmer, P. (2004) Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor.
University of California Press.

17
Fassin, D. (2007) When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa.
University of California Press.

Fassin, D. (2009) ‘Another Politics of Life is Possible.’ Theory, Culture & Society 26 (5): 44-60.

Fuentes, M. (2016) Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. University
of Pennsylvania Press.

Gilmore, R. (2007) Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing
California. University of California Press.

Giroux, H. (2006) ‘Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability.’
College Literature 33 (3): 171-196.

Haritaworn, J. et al., eds. (2015) Queer Necropolitics. Routledge.

Hartman, S. (1997) Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century

America. Oxford Unviersity Press.

Pappe, I. (2007) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications.

Petryna, A. (2013) Life Exposed: Biological Citizens After Chernobyl. Princeton University Press.

Puar, J. (2017) The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Duke University Press.

Tremain, S. ed. (2015) Foucault and the Government of Disability. University of Michigan Press.

Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. Zed.
Weizman, E. (2007) Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation. Verso.

Wolfe, P. (2006) ‘Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.’ Journal of Genocide
Research 8 (4): 387-409.

18
 Week 10: More-Than-Human Cultures of Life and Power

Required Reading
De la Cadena, M. ‘Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections Beyond
“Politics.”’ Cultural Anthropology 25 (2): 334-370.

Further Reading
Agrawal, A. (2005) Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects.
Duke University Press.

Allewaert, M. (2013) Ariel’s Ecology: Plantations, Personhood, and Colonialism in the American
Tropics. University of Minnesota Press.

Asdal, K. et al., eds. (2017) Humans, Animals, and Biopolitics: The More-than-Human Condition.
Routledge.

Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: Toward a Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press.

Braidotti, R. (2013) The Posthuman. Polity Press.

Chen, M. (2012) Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Duke UP.

Connollly, W. (2017) Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming.
Duke University Press.

Coole, D. & Frost, S. eds. (2010) New Materialism: Ontology, Agency, Politics. Duke University
Press.

19
De la Cadena, M. (2015) Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds. Duke
University Press.

Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University
Press.

Latour, B. (2018) Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Polity Press.

Lemke, T. (2014) ‘New Materialisms: Foucault and the “Government of Things.”’ Theory, Culture
& Society 32 (4): 3-25.

Povinelli, E. (2015) ‘Transgender Creeks and the Three Figures of Power in Late Liberalism.’
Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 26 (1): 168-187.

Povinelli, E. (2016) Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism. Duke University Press.

Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017) Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds.
University of Minnesota Press.

Suarez-Krabbe, J. (2015) Race, Rights and Rebels: Alternatives to Human Rights and
Development from the Global South. Rowman & Littlefield.

Tsing, AL. (2017) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist
Ruins. Princeton University Press.

Weinstein, J. & Colebrook, C. eds. (2017) Posthumous Life: Theorizing Beyond the Posthuman.
Columbia University Press.

Wolfe, C. (2017) ‘Posthumanism Thinks the Political: A Genealogy for Foucault’s The Birth of
Biopolitics.’ Journal of Posthuman Studies 1 (2): 117-135.

20