The Biopolitics of Punishment: Derrida and Foucault

214 Pages·2022·9.42 MB·English

by  Rick Elmore, Ege Selin Isleke

The Biopolitics of
Punishment

The Biopolitics of
Punishment
Derrida and Foucault
Edited by Rick Elmore
and Ege Selin Islekel
northwestern university press
evanston, illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2022 by Northwestern University. Published 2022 by Northwestern
University Press. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Elmore, Rick, Ph.D., editor. | Islekel, Ege Selin, editor.
Title: The biopolitics of punishment : Derrida and Foucault / edited by Rick
Elmore and Ege Selin Islekel.
Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021062401 | ISBN 9780810144873 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780810144880 (cloth) | ISBN 9780810144897 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Punishment— Philosophy. | Derrida, Jacques. | Foucault, Michel,
1926– 1984.
Classification: LCC K5103 .B567 2022 | DDC 364.601— dc23/eng/20220105
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062401
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations of Works Cited ix
Editors’ Introduction 3
Part 1. Punishment and Sacrifice: The Death Penalty and the Penitentiary
Chapter 1
Biopolitics and the Politics of Sacrifice: Derrida on Life,
Life Death, and the Death Penalty 19
Michael Naas
Chapter 2
Posthuman and Postanimal Futures, or The Possibilities of
a Deconstructive Biopolitics 37
Rick Elmore
Chapter 3
Blood on Our Minds, Blood on Our Hands 53
Brad Elliott Stone
Chapter 4
Foucault and the Biopolitics of the Penitentiary: Death in/by Incarceration 71
Ege Selin Islekel
Part 2. Taking Lives, Letting Die: The Biopolitics of Race
Chapter 5
Making Die or Letting Die: Derrida, Foucault, and the Refugee Crisis 89
Kelly Oliver
Chapter 6
Counting Heads: Reason, the Human, and Capital Punishment(s) 105
María de la Cruz Salvador López
Chapter 7
From the Will to Race to Hygienic Feminism: Race, State, Habit 121
Tamsin Kimoto
Part 3. Resistance in Action
Chapter 8
Fearless Lives: Parrhesia in a Biopolitical Frame 143
Sid Hansen
Chapter 9
The Silent Exception: Hunger- Striking and Lip- Sewing 153
Banu Bargu
Chapter 10
The Etymology of Unity: Derrida, Foucault, and the End of Prisons 185
Janos Toevs
List of Contributors 203
Acknowledgments
The idea for this volume was hatched several summers ago in an e- mail
exchange with Perry Zurn. Perry helped to sketch much of the initial pro-
posal, read drafts of subsequent versions, and was invaluable in securing the
amazing set of scholars whose work makes up this collection. There is no
part of this volume that does not bear the mark of his unique and generous
intellect, and we would like to thank him for his support and his friendship
from the bottoms of our hearts. It is the work of the contributors that truly
makes a collection what it is, and the present volume is no exception. We
would like to thank Banu Bargu, Kelly Oliver, Michael Naas, Brad Elliott
Stone, Tamsin Kimoto, Sid Hansen, María de la Cruz Salvador López, and
Janos Toevs for trusting us with their work. The COVID- 19 pandemic has
left no part of life untouched, and we are particularly grateful for the speed
and care with which our contributors stuck to deadlines despite the difficult
circumstances. We would like to thank Lisi Owens for her help in arrang-
ing communications and text exchanges with Janos Toevs. We would like to
thank Lia Fior and Christian Halstead for their help in copyediting various
chapters of this volume. We would like to thank the two anonymous press
reviewers for their critical and supportive suggestions; the volume is stronger
for their insights. We would like to thank the acquisitions editor at North-
western, Trevor Perri, for all his help in making this volume a reality. We
are also thankful to Sage Publishing for allowing us to reprint Banu Bargu’s
“The Silent Exception: Hunger- Striking and Lip- Sewing,” Law, Culture and
Humanities (May 2017): 1– 28, copyright © 2017 by SAGE Publications,
Ltd., reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications, Ltd.
None of us works or thinks in a vacuum, and there is an entire commu-
nity of folks without whom this volume would not have been possible. Rick
would like to thank Selin for all her hard work and support; I will always
be grateful for the friendship we have forged. I am thankful, as always, to
Jonathan Elmore, James Manos, Joe Weiss, and brian bean, whose friendship
and intellect are part of everything I do. Kevin Schilbrack for his support and
friendship. Matthew Calarco for some very kind comments on an early draft
of my chapter and on the possibility of a Derridean biopolitics. Beth and
Richard Elmore for their unwavering support. Maddy Elmore for remind-
ing me every day that there are things in this world worth fighting for, and
Misty Elmore for everything, always. Selin would like to thank Rick for all
his support, hard work, and friendship as we worked on this project together
vii
viii Acknowledgments
over the years; it was a pleasure to work with him as a team in bringing this
book to completion. I am thankful to Ece Eksi, Sina Kramer, Andrew Dilts,
Marie Draz, Dilek Huseyinzadegan, and Jeremy Bell for their friendship. H
Rakes for their support throughout the years, and for their guidance and help
in dealing with different moments of this project. Hatice Dedeler and Zeki
Islekel for teaching very early on the importance of struggling for a more just
world. And of course, as always, I am thankful to Don Deere for everything.
Abbreviations of Works Cited
Works by Jacques Derrida
ATTIA The Animal That Therefore I Am, trans. David Wills, ed. Marie-
Louise Mallet (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008)
BS1 The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 1, Seminar of 2001–2 002, trans.
Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009)
BS2 The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume 2, Seminar of 2002–2 003, trans.
Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010)
DP1 The Death Penalty, Volume 1, Seminar of 1999– 2000, trans. Peggy
Kamuf, ed. Geoffrey Bennington, Marc Crépon, and Thomas Dutoit
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014)
DP2 The Death Penalty, Volume 2, Seminar of 2000– 2001, trans. Elizabeth
Rottenberg, ed. Geoffrey Bennington and Marc Crépon (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2017)
Works by Michael Foucault
BB The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–
1979, trans. Graham Burchell, ed. Michel Senellart (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
CT The Courage of Truth (The Government of Self and Others II): Lec-
tures at the Collège de France, 1983– 1984, trans. Graham Burchell
(New York: Picador, 2011)
DP Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan
(New York: Random House, 1977)
GoL On the Government of the Living: Lectures at the Collège de France,
1979– 1980, trans. Graham Burchell (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014)
ix