Political Forms Reading Group

We would like to invite you to our relaunched reading group, ‘Political Forms’. If you are interested in critical theory and political philosophy, the political dimensions of art and literature, or interdisciplinary reflections on politics, please do join us. The group aims to connect researchers working across different disciplines once a month to discuss readings in an informal and friendly atmosphere. 

Since our relaunch in August 2021 we have discussed a variety of texts, including Hannah Arendt’s 1945 essay ‘We Refugees’ and Giorgio Agamben’s 1995 response of the same title, and a selection of excerpts from Sara Ahmed’s 2004 book The Cultural Politics of Emotion and Ahmed’s blog, feministkilljoys. We have discussed issues of refuge and refugee identity, forms of political community, and the intersection between politics and affect. 

At this meeting we discuss two chapters from Achille Mbembe’s book Necropolitics, translated in 2019 by Steven Corcoran: Chapter Three, “Necropolitics’, and Chapter Four, ‘Viscerality’.  We will consider Mbembe’s approach to sovereignty and biopolitics in relation to our current political context, and the ways ‘necropolitical’ power resonates with or challenges concepts we have discussed in our previous meetings. 

For more information and access to these readings please contact Rebecca Bevington (rb1371@york.ac.uk) or Wiktoria Tunska (wmt504@york.ac.uk).

Join this event via the Zoom link.