The Microbial State: Global Thriving and the Body Politic
(Hardback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
The Microbial State: Global Thriving and the Body Politic
By (Author) Stefanie R. Fishel
University of Minnesota Press
University of Minnesota Press
17th July 2017
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
International relations
Microbiology (non-medical)
320.101
Physical Properties
Hardback
192
Width 140mm, Height 216mm, Spine 25mm
Description
For three centuries, concepts of the state have been animated by one of the most powerful metaphors in politics: the body politic, a claustrophobic and bounded image of sovereignty. Climate change, neoliberalism, mass migration, and other aspects of the late Anthropocene have increasingly revealed the limitations of this metaphor. Just as the human
Reviews
"How do bodies matter in international relations In The Microbial State, Stefanie R. Fishel offers up a lively, timely, scientifically-engaged, philosophically-rich, and persuasive answer to that question. This wonderfully readable and teachable book presents politics as a swarm of activities immanent to a biosphere, and human agency as a power profoundly entangled with the goings-on of our microbial messmates."Jane Bennett, author of Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things
"An important intervention that will contribute in powerful and novel ways to the ongoing debates on corporeality, materialism, and international relations. Stefanie R. Fishel's work is certain to become influential."Mark B. Salter, editor of Making Things International 1 and Making Things International 2
"Fishels style of is not only academic; it shares new perspectives on crossing disciplinary boundaries through IR and biology while it remains enjoyable to read. This amusing book is full of possibilities and raises even more questions when it ends."Politics, Religion & Ideology
"Fishels biopolitical project seeks to extend this kind of thinking about the immune system, as something much more than just a line of defence, from the body to the State as a way of challenging the exclusionary states presentation of outsiders as potential contaminants and threats." Radical Philosophy
Author Bio
Stefanie R. Fishel is assistant professor of political and international theory in the Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama.
