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Giorgio Agamben: Interview in La Repubblica by Antonio Gnoli, May 15, 2016
English translation
Fascinating interview with Agamben from 2016 in La Repubblica, in which he talks about the roots of his philosophy and ideas! Priceless recollection, even about how come that in the Last Supper scene in “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” the apostles and Jesus eat matzo bread…
Original in Italian here.
Giorgio Agamben: “I believe in the link between philosophy and poetry. I have always loved the truth and the word”
A.G. — Giorgio Agamben has written a beautiful book. His books are always dense and terse (and unpredictable like the one recently dedicated to Pulcinella, edizioni Nottetempo). They look at the remote past. It is the only way to intensify the present. Take his latest work Che cos’è la filosofia? (published by Quodlibet), what hides a seemingly obvious question? “It is my conviction” — says Agamben — “that philosophy is not a discipline, whose object and boundaries can be defined (as Deleuze tried to do) or, as happens in universities, to pretend to trace a linear and perhaps progressive history. Philosophy is not a substance, but an intensity that can suddenly animate any field: art, religion, economy, poetry, desire, love, even boredom. It resembles more something like wind or clouds or a storm: like these…
