Synopses & Reviews
Habeas Viscus focuses attention on the centrality of race to notions of the human. Alexander G. Weheliye develops a theory of andquot;racializing assemblages,andquot; taking race as a set of sociopolitical processes that discipline humanity into full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans. This disciplining, while not biological per se, frequently depends on anchoring political hierarchies in human flesh. The work of the black feminist scholars Hortense Spillers and Sylvia Wynter is vital to Weheliyeand#39;s argument. Particularly significant are their contributions to the intellectual project of black studies vis-andagrave;-vis racialization and the category of the human in western modernity. Wynter and Spillers configure black studies as an endeavor to disrupt the governing conception of humanity as synonymous with white, western man. Weheliye posits black feminist theories of modern humanity as useful correctives to the andquot;bare life and biopolitics discourseandquot; exemplified by the works of Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, which, Weheliye contends, vastly underestimate the conceptual and political significance of race in constructions of the human. Habeas Viscus reveals the pressing need to make the insights of black studies and black feminism foundational to the study of modern humanity.
Review
andquot;Habeas Viscus is a major contribution to the discourses of race and modern politics. Alexander G. Weheliye intervenes in contemporary engagement with Agambenand#39;s and Foucaultand#39;s scholarship on biopolitics by opening new lines of inquiry for thinking through the problem of the human. Weheliye turns to the work of two major scholars and theorists of black studies, Hortense Spillers and Sylvia Wynter, revealing their thinking about the material and discursive existence of black bodies as vital analytical rubrics for conceptualizing the human.andquot;
Review
andquot;Alexander Weheliyeand#39;s Habeas Viscus is the latest iteration in the current reinvigoration of black diasporic thought.... Habeas Viscus feeds into this furiously complex joyful noise.andquot;
Review
andldquo;It is a book that offers us a meditation for imagining a world where the categorization and organization that produces race, and racialist distinction and hierarchy andmdash; where human life andmdash; might be organized otherwise than it is.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Habeas Viscus is a work with vast implications for the rereading of canonical works of biopolitics, as well as the reframing of biopolitics from the andlsquo;otherandrsquo; side. The arguments and techniques provided in the book will not only be of interest to scholars of race, feminism, and biopolitics, but also to those engaged with disability studies, affect theory, and even animal/ity studies. For this last group in particular, Habeas Viscus will be a haunting incantation for reconsidering the meanings and boundaries of human and nonhuman life, where andlsquo;fleshandrsquo; is proved liminal, belonging neither to the realm of Man nor beast.andrdquo;
Synopsis
In Habeas Viscus, Alexander G. Weheliye seeks to rectify a major shortcoming of the andquot;bare life and biopolitics discourse,andquot; exemplified by the works of Agamben and Foucault, its failure to appreciate the centrality of race to accounts of the human. Working from the vantage point of black studies and drawing especially on the thought of the black feminist theorists Hortense Spillers and Sylvia Wynter, Weheliye suggests alternate ways of conceptualizing the place of race within the dominion of modern politics.
About the Author
Alexander G. Weheliye is Professor of African American Studies and English at Northwestern University. He is the author of Phonographies: Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity, also published by Duke University Press.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Now 1
1. Blackness: The Human 17
2. Bare Life: The Flesh 33
3. Assemblages: Articulation 46
4. Racism: Biopolitics 53
5. Law: Property 74
6. Depravation: Pornotropes 89
7. Deprivation: Hunger 113
8. Freedom: Soon 125
Notes 139
Bibliography 181
Index 205