Forms of Life : : Aesthetics and Biopolitics in German Culture / / Andreas Gailus.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Gailus, Andreas,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2020]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (408 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Preface --; List of Abbreviations --; Introduction --; Part I. Life as Formation --; Part II. The Conflict of Forms --; Part III. Deformation --; Epilogue --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781501749971; 9783110690460; 9783110704716; 9783110704518; 9783110704747; 9783110704532
• DOI: 10.1515/9781501749971?locatt=mode:legacy
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Andreas Gailus.

In Forms of Life, Andreas Gailus argues that the neglect of aesthetics in most contemporary theories of biopolitics has resulted in an overly restricted conception of life. He insists we need a more flexible notion of life: one attuned to the interplay and conflict between its many dimensions and forms. Forms of Life develops such a notion through the meticulous study of works by Kant, Goethe, Kleist, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Benn, Musil, and others.Gailus shows that the modern conception of "life" as a generative, organizing force internal to living beings emerged in the last decades of the eighteenth century in biological thought. At the core of this vitalist strand of thought, Gailus maintains, lies a persistent emphasis on the dynamics of formation and deformation, and thus on an intrinsically aesthetic dimension of life.Forms of Life brings this older discourse into critical conversation with contemporary discussions of biopolitics and vitalism, while also developing a rich conception of life that highlights, rather than suppressing, its protean character. Gailus demonstrates that life unfolds in the open-ended interweaving of the myriad forms and modalities of biological, ethical, political, psychical, aesthetic, and biographical systems.