The Signature of Power: Reign and Government

Seminar with professor Mitchell Dean:

The Signature of Power: Reign and Government

The seminar will be a brief overview of the argument, structure and style of Mitchell Dean’s new book (to be released in September), The Signature of Power.  The reading is a chapter, critically engaging with some of  Giorgio Agamben’s recent writings, the project of economic theology, and concepts of economy (oikonomia), order and providence. It seeks to capture the signature of power in the arcanum of ‘The king reigns, but he does not govern’.  The reviewers have summarized the book in the following terms:

‘Mitchell Dean starts us on a much-needed journey to enlarge and correct Foucault’s genealogies of power and develop an analytics that can transcend Foucault’s entrapment in bipolar analytics.  Set out as captivating detective work, The Signature of Power traces the clues and mystery of power to unravel the impasses and openings in Foucault, Schmitt and Agamben and develop a more politically effective ‘history of the present’. It is indispensable reading for Foucauldians and non-Foucauldians alike.’
Dr Claudia Aradau, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, King's College London

‘In The Signature of Power Mitchell Dean returns once again to the writings of Michel Foucault to provide a detailed forensic examination of the various texts in which a notion of power appears in his work.  In a thoughtful and measured discussion Mitchell Dean brings analytical order to Foucault’s fragmented formulations on the subject of power relations and drawing on the respective works of Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben in particular he proceeds to generate an  account of sovereignty, governmentality,  and biopolitics  that constitutes a major contribution to the study of power. ‘
Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, Portsmouth University

Opponent: Sverre Raffnsøe