Diana Thater gorillagorillagorilla - Universalmuseum Joanneum

Giorgio Agamben ist einer der meist
diskutierten Philosophen Italiens.
An der Universität Rom studierte
er Rechtswissenschaften, nebenbei
auch Literatur und Philosophie. 1966
und 1968 nahm Agamben an zwei
Seminaren von Martin Heidegger
teil. Diese Begegnung fand ihren
Niederschlag in Agambens erstem
Werk L’uomo senza contenuto (1970).
Als Herausgeber der italienischen
Ausgabe der Schriften Walter
Benjamins fand Agamben eine Reihe
von Benjamins verloren geglaubten
Manuskripten wieder auf. Seit Ende
der achtziger Jahre beschäftigt sich
Agamben vor allem mit politischer
Philosophie. Derzeit lehrt er Ästhetik
und Philosophie an der Universität
IUAV Venedig. Er war Gastprofessor
u.a. in Paris, Macerata, Verona,
Berkeley, Los Angeles und Düsseldorf.
Zu seinen bekanntesten Werken
zählen Homo Sacer (1995) und
Ausnahmezustand (Stato di eccezione,
2003).
Jason Smith unterrichtet Kunst
im Graduiertenprogramm des
Art Center College of Design in
Pasadena, Kalifornien. Seine Essays
sind in Artforum, Critical Inquiry,
Rethinking Marxism und Il Manifesto
erschienen. Vor Kurzem hat er ein
Manuskript über das Verhältnis von
Jacques Derridas Werk und der
Tradition des dialektischen Materialismus
abgeschlossen. Sein neues
Forschungsprojekt widmet sich Guy
Debord und dem Kino. Er ist außerdem
Mitübersetzer der englischen
Fassung von Jean-Luc Nancys Buch
Hegel: L’inquiétude de négatif (Hegel:
The Restlessness of the Negative,
2002), zu der er auch die Einführung
geschrieben hat.
Bergit Arends has been the curator
of Contemporary Arts at the Natural
History Museum London since
September 2005. She is currently
commissioning artist Tania Kovats
to create a new permanent art
installation for the museum’s Central
Hall and curates the exhibition After
Darwin: Contemporary Expressions.
Most recently she curated Mark Dion:
Systema Metropolis, 2007. In 2006
she curated The Ship: The Art of
Climate Change in partnership with
Cape Farewell. Arends graduated
from the Royal College of Art, London,
in 1997 with a MA in Visual Arts
Administration: Curating and
Commissioning Contemporary Art.
Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch-born
ethologist/biologist. Ever since his
first book Chimpanzee Politics (1982),
de Waal has drawn parallels between
primate and human behavior. His
articles and books – translated into
fifteen languages – have made him
one of the world’s most visible primatologists.
His latest publications are
Our Inner Ape (2005) and Primates
& Philosophers (2006). De Waal
is C. H. Candler Professor in the
Psychology Department of Emory
University and Director of the Living
Links Center at the Yerkes National
Primate Center in Atlanta.
Time selected him in 2007 as one
of the World’s 100 Most Influential
People today.
Laurence A. Rickels is an
acknowledged theorist and certified
therapist, and the author of a body
of work on “unmourning”: Aberrations
of Mourning (in part translated as
Der unbetrauerbare Tod), The Case
of California, and Nazi Psychoanalysis.
Course-based books that, in a sense,
popularize the “unmourning
trilogy” include The Vampire Lectures
(Vampirismus Vorlesungen) and
The Devil Notebooks. Founding editor
of the art magazine artUS, Rickels
has also written extensively on
contemporary art, most recently
in book format: Ulrike Ottinger:
The Autobiography of Art Cinema
(Ulrike Ottinger: Eine Autobiografie
des Kinos). Rickels is Professor of
German and Comparative Literature
at UC Santa Barbara and holds the
Sigmund Freud Chair in Philosophy
and Media at the European Graduate
School. His new book, I Think I Am:
Philip K. Dick, will appear in fall 2009.
Giorgio Agamben is one 162 163
of Italy’s most widely discussed
philosophers. He studied law at
the University of Rome, along with
literature and philosophy. In 1966
and 1968, Agamben took part in
two Martin Heidegger seminars.
This encounter led to Agamben’s first
work, L’uomo senza contenuto (1970).
As editor of the Italian edition of
Walter Benjamin’s writings, Agamben
rediscovered a series of Benjamin’s
manuscripts that was thought to
have been lost. Since the late 1980s,
Agamben has focused mainly on
political philosophy. He currently
teaches aesthetics and philosophy
at the IUAV University in Venice.
He has been a visiting professor in
Paris, Macerata, Verona, Berkeley,
Los Angeles and Düsseldorf, etc.
His best-known works include Homo
Sacer (1995) and Stato di eccezione
(State of Exception, 2003).
Jason Smith is faculty member
of the Graduate Studies in Art MFA
program at Art Center College of
Design in Pasadena, California. His
work has been published in Artforum,
Critical Inquiry, Rethinking Marxism,
and Il Manifesto. He recently completed
a manuscript on the relation
between the work of Jacques Derrida
and the tradition of dialectical materialism,
and has begun working on
a manuscript devoted to Guy Debord
and the cinema. He also co-translated
and introduced Jean-Luc Nancy’s
Hegel: The Restlessness of the
Negative (2002).