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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Chapter One. Introduction -- Chapter Two. Writing About Disaster -- Chapter Three. The Gift of Life -- Chapter Four. Respect in Death -- Chapter Five. Seismic Space -- Chapter Six. Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Biopolitics and posthumanism have been passé theories in the academy for a while now, standing on the unfashionable side of the fault line between biology and liberal thought. This is because they can help to explain an increasingly important (and contested) influence in modern democratic politics-that of nostalgia. As Ruth A. Miller argues in this book, nostalgia is the mode of engagement with the world that allows thought and life to coexist, productively, within democratic politics. Situating this argument in feminist theories of biopolitics, this unusual and erudite book demonstrates that nostalgia is not as detrimental to democratic engagement as scholars have claimed.

In recent decades there has been an explosion in work in the social and physical sciences describing the similarities between human and nonhuman as well as human and non-animal thinking. In this work, Ruth Miller argues that these types of phenomena are also useful models for thinking about the growth, reproduction, and spread of political thought and democratic processes. By shifting her level of analysis from the politics of self-determining subjects to the realm of material environments and information systems, Miller asks what might happen if these alternative, nonhuman thought processes become the normative thought processes of democratic engagement

"Challenging the posthumanist canon which celebrates the pre-eminence of matter, Ruth Miller, inFlourishingThoughtargues that what nonhuman systems contribute to democracy is thought. Drawing on recent feminist theories of nonhuman life and politics, Miller shows that reproduction and flourishing are not antithetical to contemplation and sensitivity. After demonstrating processes of life and processes of thought are indistinguishable, Miller finds that four menacing accumulations of matter and information--global surveillance, stored embryos, human clones, and reproductive trash--are politically productive rather than threats to democratic politics. As a consequence, she questions the usefulness of individual rights such as privacy and dignity, contests the value of the rational metaphysics underlying human-centered political participation, and re-evaluates the gender relations that derive from this type of participation. Ultimately, in place of these human-centered structures, Miller posits a more meditative mode of democratic engagement. Miller's argument has shattering implications for the debates over the proper use and disposal of embryonic tissue, alarms about data gathering by the state and corporations, and other major ethical, social, and security issues"--

"Challenging the posthumanist canon which celebrates the pre-eminence of matter, Ruth Miller, inFlourishingThoughtargues that what nonhuman systems contribute to democracy is thought. Drawing on recent feminist theories of nonhuman life and politics, Miller shows that reproduction and flourishing are not antithetical to contemplation and sensitivity. After demonstrating processes of life and processes of thought are indistinguishable, Miller finds that four menacing accumulations of matter and information--global surveillance, stored embryos, human clones, and reproductive trash--are politically productive rather than threats to democratic politics. As a consequence, she questions the usefulness of individual rights such as privacy and dignity, contests the value of the rational metaphysics underlying human-centered political participation, and re-evaluates the gender relations that derive from this type of participation. Ultimately, in place of these human-centered structures, Miller posits a more meditative mode of democratic engagement. Miller's argument has shattering implications for the debates over the proper use and disposal of embryonic tissue, alarms about data gathering by the state and corporations, and other major ethical, social, and security issues"--

Cover Page -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- Introduction -- Liberalism, Authoritarianism, and Biopolitics -- Consent and Bodily Integrity -- Gender -- Colonialism -- An Outline -- 2 Reproduction and Race Suicide -- Introduction -- Historical Context -- The Biopolitical Womb -- Defining Nineteenth Century Reproductive Space -- Consent and Interwar Reproduction -- Bodily Integrity after the Second World War -- Conclusion -- 3 Sexuality and Citizenship Formation -- Introduction -- Historical Context -- Defining Nineteenth Century Sexual Space -- Consent and Interwar Sexuality -- Bodily Integrity after the Second World War -- Conclusion -- 4 Defining Europe -- Introduction -- Europe -- Refugee Sexuality -- 5 Women and the Political Norm -- Introduction -- Women as Citizens and Citizens as Women I -- Collapsing Categories I -- War, Politics, and Law -- Collapsing Categories II -- Women as Citizens and Citizens as Women II -- Conclusion -- 6 Conclusion -- Bibliography

Challenging the posthumanist canon that celebrates the preeminence of matter, Ruth Miller, in Flourishing Thought contends that what nonhuman systems contribute to democracy is thought. Drawing on recent feminist theories of nonhuman life and politics, Miller shows that reproduction and flourishing are not antithetical to contemplation and sensitivity. After demonstrating that processes of life and processes of thought are indistinguishable, Miller finds that four menacing accumulations of matter and information—global surveillance, stored embryos, human clones, and reproductive trash—are politically productive rather than threats to democratic politics. As a consequence, she questions the usefulness of individual rights such as privacy and dignity, contests the value of the rational metaphysics underlying human-centered political participation, and reevaluates the gender relations that derive from this type of participation. Ultimately, in place of these human-centered structures, Miller posits a more meditative mode of democratic engagement.

Miller's argument has shattering implications for the debates over the proper use and disposal of embryonic tissue, alarms about data gathering by the state and corporations, and other major ethical, social, and security issues.

Intro -- The Erotics of Corruption -- Contents -- Introduction -- Corruption, Democracy, and the Colony -- A Vocabulary of Corruption -- Theoretical Framework -- An Overview -- Conclusion -- 1. Political Corruption as Sexual Deviance: A Literature Review -- The Body Politic -- The Developing State and Its Infantile Transgression -- Incest, Cannibalism, and Corporate Responsibility -- Conclusion -- 2. Celebrating the Corrupt Leader -- Pornography and Testimony -- Getting to Know Abdul and Saddam -- Developing State, Developing Star -- Body Doubles and Doubled Bodies -- Confession -- Conclusion -- 3. Condemning the Corrupt System -- Biopolitical Space and Totalitarian Space -- Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom -- Bandits and Bureaucrats -- The Portable Torture Nation -- Bribery, Nepotism, and Decay -- Dehumanizing Bureaucracies -- Conclusion -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.

On 2 November 2010, the voters of Oklahoma passed the so-called "Save Our State Amendment." This amendment to Oklahoma's constitution prohibited Oklahoma courts from "look[ing] to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically," it asserted, "the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia Law." This legislative moment in middle America passed quickly. Commentators both inside and outside the United States responded to the amendment with bewilderment—and in 2012, a federal appeals court ruled the amendment unconstitutional. "Save Our State" died before it could have any far-reaching effect.

This year marked an important transition for the Berkeley Planning Journal: we are now an electronic, open access publication. Our new publication method of record is eScholarship, a service of the University of California. eScholarship allows us to publish our articles online, in an indexed publication, while granting our readers a wide range of rights to download, print, and share our author's work. We are part of a movement in academia in which many scholars are taking a closer look at the way access to their research is controlled.