A student of Martin Heidegger, an acknowledged Walter Benjamin expert, and trained in classical and medieval philology, linguistics and philosophy, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben draws upon a vast body of scholarship and erudition (which also includes Enlightenment thought, scientific taxonomy and anthropology from the eighteenth century onwards, juridical and legal discourse in the Western tradition, right up to twentieth century continental philosophy), in order to throw light on a variety of contemporary questions of the most pressing kind. One feature of Agamben’s work is the way that he reanimates – as an historical legacy – the dynamic force-field of a network of ancient words, concepts and problems, bringin

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First published 15 March 2006

Citation: Morgan-Wortham, Simon. "Giorgio Agamben". The Literary Encyclopedia. 15 March 2006.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11699, accessed 21 November 2009.]