Engin Isin, The Birth of Sensory Power: Doing Things with Words, Numbers and Neurons – Edinburgh University Press, November 2025

How have datasciences and neurosciences converged to create a new form of power, polity and citizenship?

• Proposes a theory of sensory power and re-examines theories of sovereign, disciplinary, and regulative powers
• Offers a revised history of datasciences and neurosciences
• Develops a revised theory of the brain-machine imitation game, offering an account of how the imitation game affects cities, states, and empires and produces the autopoietic subject

This book examines the transformation of historical forms of power and the emergence of new polities and citizen-subjects produced by a new form of power – sensory power – in the 21st century. Engin Isin highlights how sensory power, driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, transforms historical forms of power (sovereign, disciplinary and regulative), reconfigures cities, states, and empires, and engenders the autopoietic subject. Drawing from thinkers like Spinoza, Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Foucault, and reworking their theories of power with Austin and Derrida, the book offers a critical perspective on these changes.