Stuart’s new book is out!
A philosophically nuanced critique of biopower, The Living from the Dead is a meditation on life, death, power, language, and control in the twenty-first century. Arguing that biopower can be fully exposed only through an analysis of those whom society has 鈥渓et die,鈥� Stuart J. Murray employs a series of transdisciplinary case studies to uncover the structural and rhetorical conditions through which biopower works. These case studies include the concept of 鈥渟acrifice鈥� in the 鈥渨ar鈥� against COVID-19, where emergent cultures of pandemic 鈥渞esistance鈥� are explored alongside suicide bombings and military suicides; the California mass hunger strikes of 2013; legal cases involving 鈥減reventable鈥� and 鈥渦ntimely鈥� childhood deaths, exposing the irreconcilable claims of anti-vaxxers and Indigenous peoples; and the videorecording of the death of a disabled Black man. Murray demonstrates that active resistance to biopower inevitably reproduces tropes of 鈥渕aking live鈥� and 鈥渓etting die.鈥�
