Author's Keywords: biopolitics, thanatopolitics, suicide bomber, terrorism, Kant, Foucault, sacred, dignity, death, life	Convention All Academic Convention is the premier solution for your association's abstract management solutions needs. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Political Science Association URL: http://www.apsanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p39735_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Murray, Stuart. "Thanatopolitics: On the Use of Death for Mobilizing Political Life" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC, Sep 01, 2005 <Not Available>. 2009-05-25 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p39735_index.html>

Murray, S. J. , 2005-09-01 "Thanatopolitics: On the Use of Death for Mobilizing Political Life" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC Online <PDF>. 2009-05-25 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p39735_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Review Method: Peer Reviewed Abstract: This paper proposes a "discourse on death" as both a resistance to and a way beyond the current political impasse suggested by Foucaultian biopolitics. I address the death of the suicide bomber as "thanatopolitical," and argue that the suicide bomber represents a profound limit to modern, biopolitical reason. Beginning with a discussion of Kant on suicide, I draw on Kant's distinction between suicide and sacrifice, thus problematizing the activity of the suicide bomber. While I see Kant as a modern precursor to biopolitics, I also find in his theory of imagination (Einbildungskraft) a way to move beyond our current hegemonic, biopolitical idiom. I argue that the suicide bomber must be understood "productively" -- rhetorically and affectively -- through his/her rhetorical effects on everyday practices surrounding bodily integrity and community. This is not a rational or conceptual enterprise, but draws, finally, on Foucault's late work on ethics. Here, Foucault points the way toward a "discourse on death," suggesting how we might begin to free ourselves from the prejudicial idiom of biopolitics, freeing ourselves toward a new understanding of the political sacred.

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