Pulcinella: Or Entertainment for Children

The list of subjects that Giorgio Agamben has tackled in his career is dizzying—from the dangers of our current political moment to the traces of the distant past that inflect the culture around us today. With Pulcinella, Agamben is back with yet another surprising—and surprisingly relevant—subject: the commedia dell’arte character.

At the heart of Pulcinella is Agamben’s exploration of an album of 104 drawings, created by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804) near the end of his life, tha...