Does sovereignty have a future in the 21st century? Through a sustained engagement with the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, and against the background of contemporary political phenomena, Arne De Boever explores what positive political possibilities the notion of sovereignty might still hold. Using the philosophy of Catherine Malabou, he argues that these possibilities reside in an aesthetic reconceptualisation of sovereignty as a plastic power that is able to give, receive and explode the forms of our political future.

Let’s say　Zoe　is matter, and　Bios　is form. If sovereignty tends to assimilate them and reduce them to a magma, the task of displacing sovereignty is then to reaffirm the plasticity of life, its shaping power. Such a displacement cannot happen from the outside. Change will occur from within, because there is no «other» of sovereignty. Rejecting all form of transcendence or messianism and providing us with a highly original reading of Agamben, De Boever proves that sovereignty implies its own transformability. -- Catherine Malabou, Kingston University
Rejecting all form of transcendence or messianism and providing us with a highly original reading of Agamben, Arne De Boever proves that sovereignty implies its own transformability. -- Catherine Malabou, Kingston University

Arne De Boever teaches American Studies in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts. He is the author of numerous articles, reviews, and translations, as well as several books on contemporary comparative fiction and political and aesthetic philosophy. His books include Against Aesthetic Exceptionalism (2019), Plastic Sovereignties: Agamben and the Politics of Aesthetics (2016), François Jullien’s Unexceptional Thought (2020), and Being Vulnerable (2023).