A Critical Reinterpretation of the Biopolitical Mechanism in Akhtar’s Disgraced

This paper examines issues of race, power, and capital in 21st-century American society as portrayed in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, utilizing the biopolitical paradigm as an analytical framework. The paper engages in a critical examination of Giorgio Agamben’s biopolitical theory, which elucidates the power dynamics and relationships of powerlessness among the characters. Drawing on Agamben’s theory of biopolitics, which scrutinizes ‘bare life’ through the lens of Foucault’s biopolitics of surveillance, this analysis explores the characters in this play using the concepts of bios and zoē. The characters in this play manipulate psychological power to serve their own interests, which exposes the dynamics of biopolitics. This analysis also investigates the characters’ evolving identities through contemporary biopolitical theories, situating the study within the socio-political context of the 2011-2012 America, where the play is set. Furthermore, in this play, Akhtar reflects on racism by addressing the issues of xenophobia and Islamophobia, which are prevalent in American society.