The Secret Agent: Necropolitics, Democracy, and the Community without Qualification
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In: Victoriographies: A Journal of the Long Nineteenth Century, Vol. 13, No. 3, 11.2023, p. 277-297.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Secret Agent: Necropolitics, Democracy, and the Community without Qualification
AU - Burke, Tristan
PY - 2023/11
Y1 - 2023/11
N2 - In its juxtaposition of liberal government and terrorist violence, metropole and colony, Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent explores the imbrication of modes of biopolitical and necropolitical sovereignty. Taking as its starting point Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics, which has not yet been widely discussed in relation to Conrad’s work, this essay argues that Conrad analyses a shift from biopolitical liberal democracy to necropolitical terror. Necropolitics, however, also forms the basis on which radically democratic communities of the biopolitically outcast, can form communities of resistance to sovereign power.
AB - In its juxtaposition of liberal government and terrorist violence, metropole and colony, Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent explores the imbrication of modes of biopolitical and necropolitical sovereignty. Taking as its starting point Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics, which has not yet been widely discussed in relation to Conrad’s work, this essay argues that Conrad analyses a shift from biopolitical liberal democracy to necropolitical terror. Necropolitics, however, also forms the basis on which radically democratic communities of the biopolitically outcast, can form communities of resistance to sovereign power.
KW - terrorism
KW - disability
KW - liberal
KW - London
KW - imperialism
KW - Achille Mbembe
KW - Jacques Rancière
UR - https://www.euppublishing.com/loi/vic
U2 - 10.3366/vic.2023.0504
DO - 10.3366/vic.2023.0504
M3 - Article
VL - 13
SP - 277
EP - 297
JO - Victoriographies: A Journal of the Long Nineteenth Century
JF - Victoriographies: A Journal of the Long Nineteenth Century
SN - 2044-2416
IS - 3
ER -