Magnus Fiskesjö

Bio: Magnus Fiskesjö is an academic researcher from Cornell University. The author has contributed to research in topics: China & Civilization. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 30 publications receiving 251 citations.

Outlaws, barbarians, slaves: Critical reflections on Agamben’s homo sacer

Abstract: Agamben’s political philosophy of state power as founded on the expulsion of outcasts, who are embraced as key components of the system precisely by virtue of their potential exclusion, strangely omits such cardinal and long-familiar figures of sociopolitical inequality as the slave and the barbarian. These are neglected despite how they, together, stare us in the face from the very same pages in Aristotle from which Agamben derives his theory of bare life, and despite their key historical role in imperial state ideology and in the formation of empires. Agamben instead resurrects the obscure figure of homo sacer , an ancient Roman form of outlaw interpreted as bare life, mainly for the purpose of rethinking and debating citizenship, exclusion, and the ruse of the “rule of law” in the modern Western state form. As a transhistorical-paradigmatic figure it leaves aside not only its obvious counterparts—slaves and barbarians (whose real-life referents, like homo sacer, are also both historical and contemporary)—but also the pre-state and pre-law excommunication of outcasts. In this article I discuss the historical and political anthropology of outcasts and outlaws, slaves, and barbarians, what is obscured by homo sacer, and what this “limit figure” can bring to light.

Critical reflections on Agamben's homo sacer

Abstract: Agamben‘s political philosophy of state power as founded on the expulsion of outcasts, who are embraced as key components of the system precisely by virtue of their potential exclusion, strangely omits such cardinal and long-familiar figures of sociopolitical inequality as the slave and the barbarian. These are neglected despite how they, together, stare us in the face from the very same pages in Aristotle from which Agamben derives his theory of bare life, and despite their key historical role in imperial state ideology and in the formation of empires. Agamben instead resurrects the obscure figure of homo sacer, an ancient Roman form of outlaw interpreted as bare life, mainly for the purpose of rethinking and debating citizenship, exclusion, and the ruse of the ―rule of law‖ in the modern Western state form. As a transhistorical-paradigmatic figure it leaves aside not only its obvious counterparts—slaves and barbarians (whose real-life referents, like homo sacer, are also both historical and contemporary)—but also the pre-state and pre-law excommunication of outcasts. In this article I discuss the historical and political anthropology of outcasts and outlaws, slaves, and barbarians, what is obscured by homo sacer, and what this ―limit figure‖ can bring to light.

The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, The Death of Teddy's Bear, and the Sovereign Exception of Guantánamo

Abstract: Each Thanksgiving, the president of the United States symbolically pardons one turkey from the fate of serving as a holiday dinner. In this pamphlet, anthropologist Magnus Fiskesjo uncovers the hidden horrors of such rituals connected with the power of pardon, from the annual turkey to the pardoning of the original Teddy Bear. It is through these ritualized and perpetually remembered acts of mercy, Fiskesjo contends, that we might come to understand the exceptional and troubling status of the "War on Terror" prisoners being held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. "In "The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon," Swedish anthropologist Magnus Fiskesjo, see in the annual presidential reprieve of an otherwise doomed turkey something much more than a lark. (Just ask a vegetarian; it's no joke.) 'It is really a symbolic pardoning act which, through public performance, establishes and manifests the sovereign's position at the helm of the state by highlighting . . . his power to control matters of life and death.' That observation leads Fiskesjo to some troubling thoughts on the exercise of U.S. sovereignty, from Teddy Roosevelt's big-stick era to the holding of prisoners at Guantanamo." Jennifer Howard, "Washington Post Book World""

People First: The Wa World of Spirits and Other Enemies

Abstract: The Wa spirit world implies a certain rootedness. Knowledge of the location and propensities of spirits is necessary to engage their capricious menace through divination diagnostics and sacrificial...

A Complete Bibliography of Publications in Isis, 2000{2009

Abstract: accademiche [38]. Ada [45]. Adrian [45]. African [56]. Age [39, 49, 61]. Al [23]. Al-Rawi [23]. Aldous [68]. Alex [15]. Allure [46]. America [60, 66]. American [49, 69, 61, 52]. ancienne [25]. Andreas [28]. Angela [42]. Animals [16]. Ann [26]. Anna [19, 47]. Annotated [46]. Annotations [28]. Anti [37]. Anti-Copernican [37]. Antibiotic [64]. Anxiety [51]. Apocalyptic [61]. Archaeology [26]. Ark [36]. Artisan [32]. Asylum [48]. Atri [54]. Audra [65]. Australia [41]. Authorship [15]. Axelle [29].

Zooarchaeology in Complex Societies: Political Economy, Status, and Ideology

Abstract: The zooarchaeology of complex societies provides insights into the interrelated social and economic relationships that people and animals created. I present a synthesis of zooarchaeological research published since the early 1990s that addresses political economy, status distinctions, and the ideological and ritual roles of animals in complex cultures. I address current approaches and applications as well as theoretical shifts in zooarchaeological practice. Research indicates there is great variability across space and time in how past peoples used animals to generate economic surplus, to establish status differentiation within societies, and to create symbolic meaning through sacrifices, offerings, and in feasts. The study of human/animal interactions in complex societies can contribute to fundamental questions of broad relevance regarding political and social life.