Book, Precarious Life the Powers of Grief and Violence[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. Precarious life is a turning point in the trajectory of Judith Butler's philosophy. Topics such as criticism of State violence, the denunciation of torture against Guantánamo prisoners, the fine perception of the state of exception in which the United States government operates in its contradictory defense of democracy, the use of Michel Foucault's thought – notably the themes of governmentality and biopolitics – and a dialogue with the ethics of Emmanuel Lévinas make this book a milestone in Butler’s journey. Considered his most passionate and personal book, it is an essential read in the field of contemporary thought. From the subtitle – The Powers of Mourning and Violence –, the reader of this small masterpiece of political philosophy can infer that there is a common thread that has been running through Butler's formulations since his first books: unequal distribution of public mourning, right to mourn , mourning lives, mourning as a fundamental element in constituting a feeling of community that opposes individualism, among others. These elements, already present in Butler's previous works, become central to a debate that is as current as it is necessary in today's Brazil, whose forms of violence reproduce the mechanisms that, as Butler perceives, constitute the power and violence of making certain lives, always the same lives, precarious. Carla Rodrigues