A formidable and influential work, Language and Death sheds a highly original light on issues central to Continental philosophy, literary theory, deconstruction, hermeneutics, and speech-act theory. Focusing especially on the incompatible philosophical systems of Hegel and Heidegger within the space of negativity, Giorgio Agamben offers a rigorous reading of numerous philosophical and poetic works to examine how these issues have been traditionally explored. Agamben argues that the human being is not just “speaking” and “mortal” but irreducibly “social” and “ethical.” Giorgio Agamben teaches philosophy at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris and at the University of Macerata in Italy. He is the author of Means without End (2000), Stanzas (1993), and The Coming Community (1993), all published by the University of Minnesota Press. Karen E. Pinkus is professor of French and Italian at the University of Southern California. Michael Hardt is professor of literature and romance studies at Duke University.
Answering the question "What is death?" by focusing on the individual is blinkered. It restricts attention to a narrow zone around the individual body of a creature. Instead, how expansive is the answer we receive when we look at the context of death within the biosphere. Death now is tied to all of life, via the atmosphere and ocean. Death supports the biological enterprise of making abundant the green and squiggly life. Talk about death has headed us straight into a contemplation of life, not only individual life, but big life, life on a global scale. Death and life are neatly dovetailed by the supreme cabinetmaker of evolution.
Earth is a dead cinder beyond the dense clouds. On a terraformed Venus the land is ruled by savage plants and the even more savage beasts that prey on them, while monsters out of nightmare swim though the globe-girdling seas. Mankind huddles in domed underwater Keeps, living a purposeless static existence—dedicated to pleasure but destined for oblivion later if not sooner.
Only the Free Companions, the mercenaries who fight proxy wars for the Keeps, live on the surface of Venus. Their warships course the seas, battling one another in struggles to decide victory or defeat for one day, life or death for a few individuals. The Free companions live till they die with the searing thrill of danger, and their deeds bring excitement and color to the bored residents of the Keeps; but Mankind is doomed unless something changes.
Few are willing to risk their lives for that change, battling both the terrifying environment and the ruthless oligarchs for whom the status quo means a lifetime of luxury. But there are a handful of courageous visionaries in the Keeps and in the Free Companies where death is a way of life!
The Carey Treatment (A Case of Need) A Case of Needis a mysterynovel written by Michael Crichton under the pseudonym Jeffery Hudson. It was first published in 1968 and won an Edgar Award in 1969.
The novel is a medical thriller in which a Boston pathlogist, Dr. John Berry, independently investigates the death of a young woman, Karen Randall. Berry becomes involved when his friend Dr. Arthur Lee is implicated in Karen's death: Lee is accused of performing the abortionon Karen Randall that led to her death. Crichton's later novels are preoccupied with technology: his novels can be extended examinations of the morality and implications of a particular innovation draped over the structure of a thriller novel. In
A Case of Need, however, it is a medical practice and not a techological innovation that is at issue.
Answering the question "What is death?" by focusing on the individual is blinkered. It restricts attention to a narrow zone around the individual body of a creature. Instead, how expansive is the answer we receive when we look at the context of death within the biosphere. Death now is tied to all of life, via the atmosphere and ocean. Death supports the biological enterprise of making abundant the green and squiggly life. Talk about death has headed us straight into a contemplation of life, not only individual life, but big life, life on a global scale. Death and life are neatly dovetailed by the supreme cabinetmaker of evolution.
