the child and the ghost

Résumé

In this excerpt Giorgio Agamben analyzes the relationship between childhood, play, and signification. Importantly, he argues that children play a unique role in social renewal precisely because of their precarious location between death and the political life of the adult. Agamben’s sustained interest in childhood is part of his overall project which concerns the ethical witnessing of the remnant that exists between binary terms such as life and death, nature and culture, human and animal. It is this interval, which both connects and separates oppositions, that Agamben locates the potentiality necessary to rethink politics, linguistics, and society itself. Key Words: Levi-Strauss; diachrony; synchrony; ghosts