Foucault Centenary: Colloquium and Workshop
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
31 August – 4 September 2026
As part of the international commemorations of the centenary of Michel Foucault’s birth, two academic events will take place in Rio de Janeiro from 31 August to 4 September 2026, bringing together researchers, doctoral students and scholars working on Foucault’s thought and its contemporary implications.
The events are organized by the IDEA Research Programme of the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the research group “Desire and Political Experience” (Universidad de Buenos Aires), MediaLab UFRJ, and the Graduate Programme in Philosophy (PPGF/IFCS-UFRJ), in collaboration with several doctoral and research programmes in Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
31 August – 2 September | International Colloquium
“What is the irony of the dispositif today? Subject, Power and Desire”
Acaso Cultural, Rua Vicente de Souza, 16, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro.
The colloquium will bring together researchers from different countries to revisit Foucault’s analyses of sexuality, power, subjectivation and desire, asking about the contemporary relevance of the diagnosis developed around The Will to Knowledge and Society Must Be Defended. The programme includes contributions from scholars working on different aspects of Foucault’s philosophy, political thought and genealogy.
3–4 September | Doctoral Course and Workshop with Orazio Irrera
“La philosophie et l’ethnographie de notre propre culture”
Acaso Cultural, Rio de Janeiro.
The course will be taught in French by Orazio Irrera (Université Paris VIII), member of the Centre Michel Foucault and coordinator of the GRAF (Groupe de Recherche sur les Archives Michel Foucault).
The workshop will explore the emergence and development of Foucault’s formulation “faire l’ethnologie de notre propre culture”, placing his work in dialogue with Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Particular attention will be given to Foucault’s 1966–1967 course at the University of Tunis and to recently published archival materials that shed new light on this period of his thought. The course will examine questions of philosophy, anthropology, alterity, colonialism and the critique of universalism.
Both events are free and open to researchers, doctoral students and others interested in Foucault’s work.
For further information, programme and registration, please contact:
Senda Sferco: senda.sferco@gmail.com
Marcio Tavares d’Amaral: marciotdamaral@gmail.com
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