Una voce di Giorgio Agamben is a an online platform where Giorgio Agamben has been publishing short public interventions in Italian since March 2017. It is hosted and maintained by the Italian publisher Quodlibet, where many of Giorgio Agamben’s books have been published.
On February 26, 2020, Giorgio Agamben started to publish short interventions on a regular basis, all focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic. This entry was created as a way to keep track of those interventions and their accompanying translations, including in book form. It is worth noting those interventions spur many reactions online: they are too numerous to be listed here. This entry will be updated with new interventions as they appear. When used, dates are expressed in the YYYY.MM.DD format. When a date is not available, Google is used to estimate the inception date of a given webpage. The entry is divided into four main parts:
1. The Book: A che punto siamo? L’epidemia come politica
Some of those interventions were gathered in a book titled A che punto siamo? L’epidemia come politica first released by Quodlibet on July 9, 2020. This volume includes modifications to interventions already published on Una voce di Giorgio Agamben, along with a foreword (“Avvertenza”), interviews, and a short essay previously unpublished (“Il diritto e la vita”). One of these new additions is available online (in Italian), while other additions have been made available in translations:
[Spanish – 2020.07.10] El derecho y la vida, same chapter from the book, trans. Artillería Inmanente
[Spanish – 2020.07.10] La nuda vida, chapter from the book, trans. Artillería Inmanente (interview with Ivar Ekman for the Swedish Public Radio, April 18, 2020)
[Spanish – 2020.07.16] Polemos epidemios, chapter from the book, trans. Artillería Inmanente, (interview with Dimitra Pouliopoulou for the Greek journal Babylonia, May 20, 2020; transcript in Greek published on February 10, 2021)
On August 26, 2021, Quodlibet released a “new enlarged edition” (Nuova edizione accresciuta) of the same book A che punto siamo? L’epidemia come politica. To the interventions already collected in the first 2020 edition, this new edition adds most (but not all) of the interventions published between July 10, 2020 (“Due vocaboli infami”) and July 28, 2021 (“Uomini e lemmings”).
• • •
2. Translations collected in book form
Book-lenght collections with translations of Agamben’s interventions on the pandemic:
[Spanish – 2020.03] Sopa De Wuhan. Pensamiento Contemporáneo En Tiempos De Pandemia, ed. Pablo Amadeo, Creative Commons. A digest of intellectual inerventions on the COVID-19 pandemic in unofficial Spanish translations, including 3 interventions by Giorgio Agamben from February 26, 2020 to March 27, 2021 (188 pages) [archive]
[Greek – 2020.05] Μόλυνση, επιδημία, κατάσταση εξαίρεσης, Alfeios Books, Athens, 2020 (the earliest collection published, prior to the collection released by Quodlibet on July 9, 2020; includes 8 interventions from March 11, 2020 to April 28, 2020, plus some additional materials; 55 pages)
[Spanish – 2020.07.30] ¿En qué punto estamos? La epidemia como política, trans. Rodrigo Molina-Zavalía and María Teresa D’Meza, Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo, 2020 (120 pages: contains interventions produced up to July 13, 2020).
[Greek – 2020.07.30] Που βρισκόμαστε; Η επιδημία ως πολιτική, Alfeios Books, Athens, 2020 (includes 23 interventions from February 26, 2020 to November 23, 2020; 142 pages)
[Romanian – 2020.12.29] Epidemia ca politică, trans. Alex Cistelecan, Alexandria Publishin House, 2020 (117 pages).
[English – 2021.02] Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics [this URL now links to the second edition], trans. Valeria Dani, Eris Press, London, February 2021 (includes 21 interventions from February 26th to November 23rd; 112 pages; also available from Rowman & Littlefield). A second “updated and augmented” edition was released in August 2021 (includes 25 interventions from February 26th to December 28, 2020; 120 pages).
[English – 2021.02.02] Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics, anonymous English translations of 25 interventions, from February 26, 2020 to January 25, 2021, presented in reverse chronological order (50 pages). Alternate link, PDF.
[Japanese – 2021.02.22] 私たちはどこにいるのか?-政治としてのエピデミック-, trans. 高桑和巳 (Kazumi Takakuwa), Tokyo: Seidocha (includes 19 interventions from February 26, 2020 to July 13, 2020)
[Dutch – 2021.05.12] Epidemie als Politiek, trans. Ype de Boer, Tim Christiaens & Menno Grootveld, Starfish Books.
[Portuguese – 2021.07.20] Quando a casa queima, trans. Vinícius Nicastro Honesko, Âyiné Publisher, Venice (102 pages).
[Russian – 2021.07] Интеллектуальные хроники пандемии. Сборник статей, ed. Александр Тимофеев (Alexander Tymofieiev), Creative Commons [alternate link]. A digest of intellectual inerventions on the COVID-19 pandemic in unofficial Russian translations, including 33 interventions by Giorgio Agamben from February 26, 2020 to July 29, 2021 (228 pages). An earlier edition of the same digest is available here.
[Swedish – 2021.09.15] Vilken punkt har vi nått?, trans. Gustav Sjöberg, Karneval, Stockholm (125 pages).
[French – 2021.10] Quand la maison brûle, trans. Léo Texier, Payot & Rivage, Paris, November 2021, 120 pages (includes a translation of “Quando la casa brucia”)
[English – 2022.03.15] When the House Burns Down, trans. Kevin Attell, Seagull Books, Chicago, March 2022, 72 pages (includes a translation of “Quando la casa brucia”).
[English – 2022.03.23] Waarom zwijgen de dichters?, trans. Bas Geerts, self-published, 168 pages (includes 38 interventions between Feb. 26, 2020 and Jan. 26, 2022, along with an introduction by the translator and a critical apparatus).
• • •
3. Interventions on Una voce with translations
Interventions are listed in reverse chronological order of their publication on Quodlibet (most recent on top). For each translation, the language of translation, the date of publication of the translation, the translated title, and the name of the translator are provided (when the translator name is not available, the name of the publication is used instead). This is by no mean a definitive list for two reasons. First, translations are not synchronous with the publication of the original, Italian versions. Second, the search for translations in non-Latin scripts presents difficulties.
The quote by Bertolt Brecht (slightly modified by Agamben) is an excerpt from the poem “In Dark Times” (In finsteren Zeiten) composed in or around 1937, and first published in 1964. In the volume Poems 1913-1956 edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim (London: Eyre Methuen Ltd., 1976) it appears on page 274 (PDF).
The quote by Dante Alighieri is taken from Divine Comedy, third part “Paradiso,” Canto XVII, lines 127-132 (see the Princeton Dante Project for a translation).
The date seems to correspond to the event “Le Politiche Pandemiche” organized by Generazioni Future (which took place on November 10, in Turin : see below). However, the title and aspects of the speech also closely match another intervention given a few days later, on November 21st, at an event organized by Studenti contro il Green Pass, in Venice.
Original: “¡Cuídate, España, de tu propia España!” by César Vallejo, in España, aparta de mí este cáliz, poem XIV, 1939. Reproduced in Obras Poetica Completa with facsimiles of the manuscript, edited by Georgette de Vallejo, Lima: Francisco Moncloa, 1968, pp. 476-477. The edition by Georgette de Vallejo is controversial for a variety of reasons. For a more recent edition, see Vol. III of Cesar Vallejo: poesía completa, 4 volumes, ed. by Ricardo Silva-Santisteban, Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1997, p. 112.
Quote from 1940: Simone Weil to her brother André (in French), possibly included in Volume VII of Weil’s Œuvres complètes, VII, Correspondance, vol. 1, Correspondance familiale (Paris: Gallimard, 2013).
In French: Simone Pétrement, La Vie de Simone Weil, Paris: Fayard, 1973, p. 509.
In English: Karen Olsson, The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 92-93
Quote from 1939: Simone Weil, Écrits politiques et historiques (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1960; specifically Deuxième partie: Politique, §12 “Désarroi de notre temps”). In this digital edition, the excerpt can be found on page 63.
[Greek – 2020.11.06] Όταν το σπίτι καίγεται, trans. (from English) Παναγιώτης Τριτσιμπίδας (Panagiotis Tritsimpidas) and Δανάη Θεοδωράκη (Danae Theodoraki)
[German – 2020.06.22] Die Wahrheitsfälscher, trans. (modified from the original) Thorsten Schewe/Rubikon (reprinted in Demokratischer Widerstand, no. 11, PDF: Agamben has denied being involved with this publication)
[Russian – 2020.12.03] Изобретение эпидемии, trans. Center for Political Analysis
• • •
4. Other interventions on the pandemic by Giorgio Agamben
Missing from the list above are additional interventions in other venues (i.e., not first published on Una voce). Most recent at the top.
Giorgio Agamben incontra gli Studenti Romani: video recording of a meeting between Giorgio Agamben and students. Organized by Studenti contro il Green Pass in Rome, on February 25, 2022. The recording is 2 hour and 47 minutes long. Agamben provides a 30-minute opening remark, which is followed by a discussion.
Video recording (in French; archive) of the intervention made by Giorgio Agamben for the Franco-Italian congress of Commissione Dubbio e Precauzione (DU.PRE), organized by Generazioni Future in Paris, on January 29, 2022 (full program; the incorrect date “January 29, 2021” is used in the document). The recording of the 8-hour event was streamed on the Studenti Contro il Green Pass TorinoYouTube channel, but was since removed “for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” At that time of writing, a copy of the recording can be streamed on FranceSoir website.
Video recording (in Italian) of the intervention made by Giorgio Agamben in front of the 1st Permanent Committee on Constitutional Affairs for the Senate of the Republic (Italy), during an informal hearing (Audizioni sul disegno di legge no. 2463) regarding vaccination requirements and strengthening the “green pass” or certificazione verde, December 7, 2021. List of participants [archive]. Official Senato.TV recording: Agamben start around 2:19:00. Tanslations are based on video transcription.
“The exceptions and forms of resistance produced by the current state of emergency,” (Εξαιρέσεις και μορφές αντίστασης που παράγει η παρούσα κατάσταση εκτάκτου ανάγκης), intervention by Giorgio Agamben (English with Greek subtitles), on the second day of a two-day event Συζητήσεων ενάντια στο υγειονομικό απαρτχάιντ (Discussions Against Health Apartheid), hosted by Αυτοδιαχειριζόμενο Κυλικείο Νομικής (AKN), Athens, November 26-27, 2021 (Agamben presented on the second day. Nov. 27, 2021). Full program [alternate link]. Audio recordings of the two sessions: Day 1, Day 2.
[Ukrainian – 2021.12.11] Kолективні потреби та індивідуальна свобода: «який баланс?», trans. (based on English) Александр Тимофеев (Alexander Tymofieiev)
[English – 2021.12.25] Our task is to think, together, trans. Autonomies (although there are confusion about the dates, this is clearly a transcript of the November 21st intervention, in Venice)
IV Congresso Associazione Diritti Alla Follia: “Un’altra “salute mentale”,” Day 1 (summary, alternate link), intervention by Giorgio Agamben (in Italian), 1:26:30 to 1:31:45 (alternate link), November 13, 2021. Tanslations are based on video transcription.
[Italian – 2021.12.29] Sulla Democrazia, transcription by Generazioni Future
On December 20, 2021, Giorgio Agamben published the text of his intervention on Una Voce: “Intervento al convegno degli studenti veneziani contro il greenpass l’11 novembre 2021 a Ca’ Sagredo.” Although both the date (which should be November 10th, if it refers to “Le Politiche Pandemiche” speech, in Turin) and the title (which refers to another presentation given in Venice, on November 21st) do not match, the transcript dated by Agamben from November 11th share some similarities with both the intervention of November 10th (in Turin) and of November 21st (in Venice). The conclusion which mentions Hannah Arendt and Eichmann only exists in the version from November 21st. It is also present in the version Agamben shared on Una Voce.
Video recording (in Italian; alternate link) of the intervention made by Giorgio Agamben in front of the 1st Permanent Committee on Constitutional Affairs for the Senate of the Republic (Italy), during an informal hearing on Bill no. 239 (Audizioni informali sul disegno di legge no. 2394) regarding the extension of the “green pass” or certificazione verde, October 7, 2021. See the official website of the Italian Senate [archive] for the list of interventions scheduled on that day (PDF). Official Senato.TV recording: Agamben start around 00:58:25. Alternate link with full program of this informal hearing.
The Italian version of the intervention was published on Una Voce on October 24, 2021: “Intervento al Senato del 7 ottobre 2021.” The translations below were published before this official transcription was made available and are likely based on the video recording.
Interview with the Greek political magazine Babylonia, originally from May 20, 2020: “Συνέντευξη του Τζιόρτζιο Αγκάμπεν στη Βαβυλωνία” by Δήμητρα Πουλιοπούλου (Dimitra Pouliopoulou). Transcript published on February 10, 2021.
This interview was included in the collection A che punto siamo? L’epidemia come politica (Quodlibet, July 9, 2020), as chapter 14, under the title: “Polemos epidemios”. See the top of this entry for a list of the various translations available for this book, including the English translation by Eris Press Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics (2021).
Interview with Ivar Ekman for Sveriges Radio, Sweden’s national public radio: “Frihetens pris i pandemin,” April 18, 2020 (starts @48 mins 05 secs) [archive]
Transcription published in A che punto siamo? L’epidemia come politica (Quodlibet, 2020), which was translated in many languages (see here). The book has the date April 19, 2020 for the interview, but it does not correspond to the information available at Sveriges Radio website.
[Spanish – 2020.07.10] La nuda vida, trans. Artillería Inmanente
1. According to a special report released in August 2020 by the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) the website where this translation is hosted “serves as a platform for Russian ultra-nationalists to spread disinformation and propaganda targeting Western and other audiences”. This entry does not link directly to the website, but uses a cached version instead. ↩︎︎
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