This paper aims to offer a discussion of concepts of “life” and “politics” as founding categories of the Italian Thought exposed by Roberto Esposito in his books Pensiero Vivente and Da Fuori. The analyses involve the concept of “cultural studies”, both from a content and methodological point of view. Regarding content, through the analysis of authors located in the Italian panorama of the second half of the nineteenth century, identified as a part of the “Early Italian Cultural Studies”, the paper proposes a possible complement to the genealogical reconstructions of Esposito. At a methodological level, the paper discusses the possibility of integrating the concept of “cultural studies” to that of “politics” as a category through which to observe and analyze the Italian philosophical tradition “from outside”.