Date of Award

Fall 12-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Director of Thesis

Marko Geslani

Second Reader

Eli Jelly-Schapiro

Abstract

As defined in The History of Sexuality (1978), Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics focused on a specifically modern phenomenon in which biological processes are used to regulate populations. This concept has been influential in modern analyses of the state such as that of Giorgio Agamben, who sought to both correct and complete biopolitics with his concept of homo sacer as part of his analysis of the concentration camp. This thesis brings the theory of biopolitics into conversation with Hannah Arendt’s politics of life. It seeks to determine the degree to which biopolitics — as seen in the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben — makes sense to Arendt’s work, especially in The Human Condition, with reference to The Origins of Totalitarianism. I ultimately argue that, despite similarities to biopolitics as conceptualized by both Foucault and Agamben, Arendt’s politics of life, rooted in natality, considerably reverses Foucault’s theory of biopolitics, focusing instead on the individual rather than governmental mechanisms.

First Page

1

Last Page

68

Rights

© 2025, Kamryn M. Carter

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