The trap of sovereignty: between power and exception

The following work interrogates the theoretical production of the Italian contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben from what we consider to be a constitutive aporia of his thought, and of contemporary thought in general. We identify this aporia with a sort of amphibological use of notions such as politics, sovereignty, nude life, biopolitics, among others. At the same time, this problem leads Agamben to oscillate between an Schmittian notion of exception and a Benjaminian notion of potentiality. Through a confrontation with his main categories, we critically review his closure of the political universe and question his unilateral understanding of power, sovereignty and biopolitics. To do that, we use Jacques Derrida's seminar on The Beast and the Sovereign.