Biopolitical Pandemics and the New Science of Management

Davide Tarizzo from the University of Salerno will present a lecture titled "Biopolitical Pandemics and the New Science of Management."

Throughout the Covid-19 crisis, public authorities have often described the global emergency as a “war against Covid.” The militarized response to the pandemic may not simply be a side effect of an unprecedented worldwide emergency—it may also reveal that military rationality and biopolitical governmentality have never been more closely intertwined than they are today.

To explain why this hypothesis deserves serious consideration, the lecture will first examine the concept of preparedness, which plays a central role in contemporary biopolitics. It will then show how this and other notions crucial to biopolitical governmentality originated from management methods originally developed for military operations and wartime situations.