Community, Immunity and the Proper

It is widely apparent in our hyper-globalized world that the epistemologies, institutions, and practices underwriting it have reached a state of profound crisis. In the globalized world, everything is inevitably brought into proximity and correlation. Wars, natural disasters, climatic upheaval, nor political and economic turmoil, none of these can be effectively isolated, insulated, instituted, even immunized, as something apart, something that might be considered proper only to itself. This collected edition considers this crisis of the proper with a focus on Italian political theorist Roberto Esposito’s work on community, immunity, and biopolitics.

This collection introduces Esposito’s work to a wider English-speaking audience and provides many important contributions to the burgeoning scholarship on his political theory. Important international scholars working in this area examine and analyze his theory from a variety of perspectives, including those of biopolitics, feminism, political theory, the history of philosophy (Spinoza, Hegel, Heidegger, and Jean-Luc Nancy), property, community, and gift economies. The collection also includes previously untranslated essays by Esposito and Jean-Luc Nancy. This collection will be of interest to those just discovering Esposito and for those who are already familiar with his work.

This book was originally published as a Special Issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.

Greg Bird is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. His research examines critical iterations of community in classical and contemporary social and political philosophy.

Jon Short teaches in the Department of Sociology at York University in Toronto, Canada. He has published essays in contemporary social and political thought with an emphasis on contemporary Italian political theory.