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Empire of the living dead 

Author: William Bogard a (Show Biography)
Affiliation:   a Department of Sociology, Whitman College, WA, USA
DOI: 10.1080/13576270801954377
Publication Frequency: 4 issues per year
Published in: journal Mortality, Volume 13, Issue 2 May 2008 , pages 187 - 200
Formats available: HTML (English) : PDF (English)
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Abstract

The corpse is no longer a dominant organizing figure of power and knowledge in postmodern network society. Limited by its own corporeality and tied to modern notions of the individual, its utility in controlling life has been superseded by technologies that control birth. This essay draws a line from Foucault's analysis of the dead body as an object of biopower to Baudrillard's and Deleuze's vision of control societies, in which the body disappears and biopower becomes a function of information and genetic modification. It uses the popular film image of the “living dead” to trace this evolution of biopower from the dissection of bodies at the end of life to the pre-programming and simulation of life at its inception: an evolution from the corpse to the clone, from the individuated dead body to the hybrid, dividualized body.
Keywords: the corpse; biopower; simulation; control societies; the body; cinema and society
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