August 2025. The site below no longer exists. Try these mugs.
How can one resist these Foucault mugs and teeshirts on the Philosophy is Dangerous site? Although… a quote from Foucault as a caption, rather than the existing slightly dodgy ones would have been nice.
And if Foucault is not your mug of tea -you have a number of other theorists to choose from, including Kierkegaard, Arendt, Rorty, Kuhn, Nietzsche, Adorno, Camus, Cixous, Bourdieu, Freud and others.
Sarah Wilson, The Visual World of French Theory. Yale: Yale Univeristy Press, Figurations, 2010.
For further details see publisher’s site.
Description
This revelatory book focuses on a remarkable series of encounters between the most prominent French philosophers of the 1960s and 1970s—Sartre, Deleuze, Bourdieu, and Foucault among them—and the artists of their times, most particularly the protagonists of the Narrative Figuration movement. Each encounter involved either a mutual engagement or the writing of critical texts or catalogue prefaces—texts that illuminate not only the work of the artists but also the production of the philosopher-writer concerned.
Although the protagonists of “French theory” are universally known and studied, their thought is presented without a sense of contiguity, chronology, or context in translation, while the artists with whom they engaged are virtually unknown outside the French-speaking world. This account restores the lived context of artistic production. What Bourdieu called “cultural competence” is seen to be essential for these particular philosophers, and Sarah Wilson shows that it is through them that the figurative art of 1970s France can be introduced to the audience it deserves.
Sarah Wilson is professor of modern art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.
Michael Hardt, ‘Militant Life’, New Left Review 64, July-August 2010
Michael Hardt on Michel Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi et des autres and Le courage de la vérité. Parting words from the Collège de France on life as the scandal of truth.
First paragraph
Visit New Left Review for the rest. (You need a subscription).
It is ironic that Foucault had to go all the way to ancient Greece to grapple with contemporary political problems. [1] [2] Only at that distance, it seems, could he see clearly, like the farsighted reader who holds the page at arm’s length to focus. Arguably, Greek thought provided not only a temporal remove from the present but also a disciplinary separation from politics: what could be more iconic of scholarly seriousness than a return to the classics? Yet perhaps he also needed the safety of ancient Greece to experiment with dangerous ideas.
Macmillan, Alexandre. “Foucault’s “Materiality of the Incorporeal” and Communication in Modern Society” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Suntec Singapore International Convention, Exhibition Centre, Suntec City, Singapore, Jun 22, 2010
Abstract
The ontological status of communication and its material/immaterial nature is one of the most important questions for a philosophical enquiry of communication. The post-Nietzschean tradition in France offers many valuable insights to consider the specific type of materiality that characterizes communication processes. Of particular interest for such questions are the works of Michel Foucault. By developing his philosophy of events, Foucault will argue that he develops a “materialism of the incorporeal”. This paper will present Foucault’s philosophy of events, and argue that communication can be considered as an organizing process that will at the same time distribute objects in an empirical field, and determine the rules for a true statement. Communication can therefore be considered as being both material and incorporeal. Foucault’s critique of representation and rationalism can then be read as a critique of the materiality of the modern regime of communication.
Danish artist Rasmus Sverre is currently working on the illustrations for a new book on Foucault and epidemics by Danish philosopher Anders Fogh Jensen
From the Portail Michel Foucault
L’ART DE GOUVERNER
du Friday 22/10/10 au Saturday 23/10/10
Journées d’études organisées à
l’Université de Créteil,
Site du mail des Mèches,
Bâtiment d’Economie les 22 et 23 Octobre 2010
Vendredi 22 Octobre : Accueil et petit-déjeuner à 9h30 – Salle 015
Problèmes de philosophie politique, sous la présidence de Pierre Manent, de 10h à 13h.
Diego Vernazza : « L’art de gouverner suivant l’esprit des lois : principes d’une politique négative.»
Emilia Murgia : « La spécificité de la théorie du gouvernement dans le Contrat Social : le corps du Prince entre légitimité et fonctionnement. »
Edouard Jourdain : « De l’autogouvernement comme art et comme science. Perspectives à partir des œuvres de Proudhon et Castoriadis. »
Nicolas Poirier : « Quel projet politique contre la domination bureaucratique ? Castoriadis et Lefort à Socialisme ou Barbarie (1949-1958). »
De 13h à 14h30 : Buffet avec les participants et les auditeurs – CROUS du CMC
Gouverner en situation, sous la présidence de Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, de 14h30 à 18h.
Adrien Louis : « Note sur la modernité des tyrannies modernes. »
Félix Blanc : « Que signifie « gouverner en temps de guerre » dans les régimes représentatifs ?»
Luca Paltrinieri : « Gouvernement des choses et subversion des conduites : l’art de gouverner au XVIIIème siècle. »
Eloïse Girault : « De la pensée magique en politique. Construction de l’action publique et crise des temporalités. »
Jérôme Boissonade : « Du dispositif délibératif à la pragmatique coopérative. »
Samedi 23 Octobre : Accueil et petit-déjeuner à 9h30 – Salle 306
Rhétorique politique et discours ordinaire, sous la présidence d’Alice Krieg-Planque, de 10h à 13h
Ariane Revel : « Diderot, Rousseau : l’art du philosophe et l’art du politique. »
Daniele Lorenzini : « That government is best which governs not at all – Thoreau et les enjeux éthiques de la désobéissance civile. »
Magali Brailly : « Du souci de l’Autre au souci du monde. Ethique levinassienne et politique arendtienne, une convergence possible ? »
Aude Dontenwille-Gerbaud : « Interactions orateurs / publics populaires : acte de fondation de la troisième République. »
De 13 à 14h30 : Buffet avec les participants –
Questions internationales, sous la présidence de Maria Bonnafous-Boucher, de 14h30 à 17h
Cécile Goncalves : « Qui gouverne la mondialisation ? »
Martina Tazzioli : « Migrants, moving and mobile people : le gouvernement des exceptions par le pouvoir différentiel de normalisation.”
Orazio Irrera : « Les interruptions du gouvernement colonial en Inde : le terrorisme et la non violence comme matrices de subjectivation éthico-politique. »
American Comparitive Literature Association 2011
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver,
March 31st – April 3rd, 2011
“World Literature / Comparative Literature”
Seminar: Foucault and/on Literature
Seminar Organizer: Philip Goldstein, U of Delaware-Wilmington,
Philip Goldstein, U of Delaware-Wilmington
Summary
The question of how the work of Michel Foucault bears on the study of literature has been controversial. Some say that in his early work on madness Foucault indicates that, as a kind of counter discourse, literature resists the institutional technologies constituting the subject. Others say that in his later work on sexuality, Foucault shows that literature as well as other discourses fosters the aesthetic self-creation of the individual. Still others say that, as Foucault’s account of the author function suggests, literature is its own discourse with its own history and technologies.
Seminar Proposal Deadline: October 1, 2010
Deadline for Paper Proposals: November 1, 2010
For more information, contact conference@acla.org
Michelle Brady, ‘What ethnography contributes to studies of governmentality’. Paper presented at the 11th Advances in Qualitative Methods Conference, October 2010, October 7-8 2010.
Published as Brady, M. (2011) Researching governmentalities through ethnography: the case of Australian welfare reforms and programs for single parents Critical Policy Studies. Vol 5. No. 3. October. pp.265-283
Abstract
In this paper I argue that the spaces of freedom and constraint that capacity programs for Australian single parents open up and close down are distinctly different when viewed from a top down perspective of governmental rationalities as compared to a bottom up perspective of what Foucault referred to as the ‘witches’ brew’ of actual practices. Around 90 percent of lone parents with dependent children in Australia are lone mothers, and around 80 percent of these lone mothers receive single rate Parenting Payment. Changes to this payment (and its precursor, Sole Parent Pension) over the last 25 years have recognized this gendered composition by focusing on issues of mothering and the intensive activities of care that continue to be carried out most commonly by mothers. While the 2005 Welfare to Work package appeared to sharply break with this practice by not focusing on gender and the unique features of mothers’ life courses, I find that these considerations have remained a key part of the ‘witches’ brew’ of actual practices. Given this finding, a key argument is that studies of governmentalities which combine sociologies of actual practices together with studies of official governmental rationalities can make important critical contributions.
Luis Lobo-Guerrero, Insuring Security: Biopolitics, security and risk, London: Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-415-58343-5
Description
Insurance is the world’s largest economic industry, providing a form of security that more than triples global defence expenditure. However, little is know about the form of security insurance provides. This book offers a genealogical interrogation of the relationship between security and risk through its materialisation in insurance.
This work seeks to argue that insurance practices ascribe value to life and in so doing produce a form of security central to the understanding of contemporary liberal governance and security. Lobo-Guerrero theorizes insurance as a biopolitical effect that results from the continuous interaction of an ‘entrepreneurial form of power’, and traditional forms of sovereign security. Through rich empirical cases and a unique theorization, the book breaks apart the traditional division between security studies, political economy and political theory. The author explores this theory in relation to specific issues such as the use of life insurance in the molecular age, the use of insurance to securitize against environmental catastrophic risk, specialist products such as kidnap and ransom insurance, as well as the use of insurance to counter maritime piracy in the twenty-first century.
Providing an important and original contribution to the study of the biopolitics of security, this work will be of great interest to all scholars of security studies, international relations and international political economy.
Employment opportunity
Research Associate
Keele University
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Research Institute of Law, Politics and Justice
(Fixed Term for 12 months)
Starting Salary: Grade 7: £29,853 p.a.
A one-year post-doctoral research position is available within a project entitled Capitalising security through life insurance in the UK; directed by Dr Luis Lobo-Guerrero and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The project seeks to analyse the role of life insurance as a security provider in the UK. The project is problem-driven and involves engaging with an interdisciplinary focus (Politics/International Relations/Security Studies; Social Studies of Finance; Social/Cultural/Political Theory). It seeks to advance knowledge on the ways in which liberal security is actively produced in relation to profit-making and the promotion and protection of lifestyles through the management of risk. The project is embedded within the Emerging Securities research group at Keele University which hosts the Biopolitics of Security Research Network.
Applicants will play an important intellectual role in managing and developing the project. Preference will be given to applicants able to demonstrate experience in biopolitical research. Competency in conducting interdisciplinary literature reviews and analyses, semi-structured interviews with high-profile officials, and internet-based as well as physical archival research is required. General knowledge of debates concerning security and risk is expected.
This post will commence on 10th January 2011.
Further details on Keele University site.
For enquiries please write to Dr Luis Lobo-Guerrero by emailing:
l.lobo-guerrero@intr.keele.ac.uk
Job packs available: or email vacancies@keele.ac.uk, Human Resources, Keele University, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG or Fax: 01782 733471.
Please quote post reference: RE10/22UK
Closing date for applications: 20 October 2010
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