Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben: From Biopolitics to Political Romanticism

Giorgio Agamben’s politics of life intertwines two diverging traditions of philosophical thought: Michel Foucault’s biopolitics and Carl Schmitt’s political philosophy. With the help of Carl Schmitt’s concept of “political romanticism,” I interpret Agamben’s strategy as an attempt to introduce a bio-aesthetics of political vitality. Moreover, I situate Agamben’s politics of life in opposition to Schmitt’s biopolitics.