Giorgio Agamben's Biopolitics and the Animal-Human Divide

Giorgio Agamben's works "Moyens sans fins" and "L'Ouvert" (published by Rivages) explore the intersection of biopolitics and animality. Drawing on Foucault's biopower and Schmitt's state of exception, Agamben argues that the fundamental act of sovereign power is the production of bare life. He contends that the camp, not the city, is the biopolitical paradigm of the West. The philosopher examines the "anthropological machine" that separates human from animal, tracing its genealogy from medieval theology to modern racialization. Agamben critiques both Darwinian evolution and Kojève's Hegelianism, proposing instead a messianic suspension of the machine through concepts like jouissance and inoperativity. Analyzing Titian's "Nymph and Shepherd," he envisions a life neither animal nor human. The refugee, the stateless, and the Shoah victim exemplify the prophetic avant-garde of a future without identity. Agamben links Nazi biopolitics to contemporary capitalist exclusion, where all populations are reduced to bare life. He calls for rendering the anthropological machine inoperative, embracing a "great ignorance" that lets both human and animal be saved in their unsavability.