Foucault News

Scholarly Conference: Call for Proposals
Foucault: Art, Histories, and Visuality in the 21st Century
OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) University,
Toronto/Tkaronto, Canada
May 29 & 30, 2024
Deadline: January 22, 2024

The French philosopher Michel Foucault’s (1926–84) work has had a major effect on scholars of art and visuality since Les Mots et les choses (1966) appeared in English in 1970 as The Order of Things. His radical ideas galvanized artists and art writers into many different directions: to insert ruptures and incoherence into history; to reimagine the subject, subjectivity, and identity; to politicize the realms of vision, visuality, and visibility; to formulate critical approaches to technology and media; and to scrutinize the inner workings of art institutions, including museums, schools, and archives. The versatility of Foucault’s thought greatly contributed to major shifts across disciplines, including the interventions of the “new art history” in the 1970s, multiculturalism and identity politics in the 1980s, visual and cultural studies in the 1990s, the questions of contemporaneity and globalization in this century. Owing to the posthumous publications of his lectures and the papers deposited at archives internationally, Foucault’s oeuvre continues to shape current discussions on methodological, political, and ethical assumptions regarding visualities and art histories forty years after his death.

Drawing from four decades of research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, this two-day symposium proposes a critical assessment of the ways that Foucault’s influence intersects with current inquiries into art, visual culture, and their technologies. The organizers invite thirty-minute paper proposals that historicize and challenge the established patterns of Foucault’s reception in art history, archaeology, museology, visual anthropology, philosophy of art, aesthetics, film and media studies, visual culture, art education, and research-creation. We hope to form an eclectic lineup of speakers who have been engaging with the French thinker’s legacies from critical perspectives informed by the urgent issues of today, such as global inequity, decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, race and ethnicity, post-truth, artificial intelligence, gender identities, environmental crisis, immigration, and diaspora. We will ask: How has Foucault’s thinking—ultimately concerned with human existence in a time of crisis— emerged from and contributed to the visual arts and material culture in the twenty-first century?

The symposium is part of the World Congress “Foucault: 40 Years After,” a global series of events commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the philosopher’s death. In efforts to reduce environmental impact and to prevent duplication with other events, we solicit proposals from researchers and artists based in North America. We welcome proposals that are international in the scope of research as well as those anchored in specific regional contexts, including Canada, for example.

Please send a one-page, single-spaced proposal and a short biography to foucault2024@gmail.com by January 22, 2024. The organizers are working on securing funding, which, if successful, would allow financial support for participants. We thank the peoples of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, and the Huron-Wendat, on whose unceded lands the event will be held.

Organizers:
Anton Lee. Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Philosophy, NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) University

Catherine M. Soussloff. Professor Emerita of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, University of British Columbia, and History of Art and Visual Culture, University of California, Santa Cruz

Collaborator/Local Host:
Charles Reeve. Professor of Visual and Critical Studies, Associate Dean of Arts and Science, OCAD University

Confirmed Speakers:
Andrew Gayed. Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, OCAD University

Amelia Jones. Robert A. Day Professor of Art and Design, Vice Dean of Faculty and Research, Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California

Louis Kaplan. Professor of History and Theory of Photography and New Media, Graduate Department of Art History, University of Toronto

Tavia Nyong’o. Professor and Chair of Theater and Performance Studies, Professor of American Studies, Professor of African American Studies, Yale University

John Rajchman. Adjunct Professor in Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University T’ai Smith. Associate Professor of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory, University of British Columbia

Kyla Wazana Tompkins. Professor and Chair of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo

WORLD CONGRESS
Foucault: 40 years after

Second call for proposals
Call for proposals PDF

1. Introduction

Michel Foucault died in Paris on 25 June 1984 at the age of 57. Forty years after his death, his work has continued to attract scholars and the general public. The number of books, as well as the doctoral theses, seminars, and conferences focused on his thought around the world is immense. Due to the posthumous publication of his lectures and unpublished material, Foucault’s international impact has continued increase in the last four decades. In fact, Foucault has now become a fundamental academic reference for any research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The global impact of his work, as well as the increasing global proliferation of Foucauldian groups and networks justifies giving special significance to the forthcoming commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of his death. This is why we would like to organise a world-wide event dedicated to analysing the last four decades of intense reception of Foucault’s work but also to exploring the current repercussion of his thought. To do so, we would like to invite all researchers working on Michel Foucault’s thought to join the project of holding a World Congress in 2024 that will encompass and examine all aspects of the French philosopher’s intellectual production.

2. Methodology

The global impact of Foucault’s work has reached such an extent that it would be impossible to bring together in one place the different groups working on his philosophy. Therefore, we propose to organise a World Congress that will be held in different venues without losing a sense of unity in terms of format and themes. To make this possible, we propose to constitute an International Scientific Committee (ISC), which will receive the activity proposals from different institutions/groups. These proposals will be considered based on a set of general criteria which will establish the minimum conditions to be met. Once the proposal has been accepted, the organisers of the specific event will receive the World Congress logo, which will include the name of the city where the activity in question takes place. Information about all activities will be gathered on and disseminated through the World Congress website and social networks. This will give an extraordinary visibility to all the events. Each local activity will become part of an unprecedented global initiative which will both highlight the relevance that Michel Foucault’s thought has attained and contribute to widening the audience of readers and researchers on a global scale.

3. Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

– Activities should focus on Foucault’s thought and be inspired by the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of his death;

– The ISC will make sure that the topics of the activities do not overlap;

– Activities should be scheduled to be carried out throughout 2024. However, activities should take place between May and June 2024 if possible;

– Activities may be organised as seminars, workshops, colloquia, or conferences, which could be held in one day or more. One-person activities are excluded;

– Online streaming of each activity is highly recommended. Event videos will be gathered on the World Congress website;

– Each activity accepted by the ISC should use the World Congress logo (at the top of this document) for promotional purposes. The name of the city in which the event in question takes place will be included on the side of the logo as shown in the example to the right;

– Coordination of different activities that take place in the same venue is recommended. Such coordination should not affect the topic or the diversity of the participants.

– Activities at different venues in the same country are allowed.

4. International Scientific Committee Members

Rodrigo Castro (Spain – Coordinator)
Daniele Lorenzini (USA)
Edgardo Castro (Argentina)
Clare O’Farrell (Australia)
Ernani Chaves (Brazil)
Santiago Castro-Gómez (Colombia)
Adán Salinas (Chile)
Sverre Raffnsøe (Denmark)
Bernard Harcourt (USA)
Frédéric Gros (France)
Philippe Sabot (France)
Elisabetta Basso (Italy)
Yasuyuki Shinkai (Japan)
Alberto Constante (Mexico)
Jesús Ayala-Colqui (Peru)
Mateusz Ozimek (Poland)
Eugenia Vilela (Portugal)
Vanessa Lemm (UK)
Achille Mbembe (South Africa)

5. Submission of proposals

Proposals for activities should be sent to: foucault40after@gmail.com to the Coordinator of the International Scientific Committee: Prof. Rodrigo Castro. Information about activities should include:

a) The title of the activity
b) A short description (5 lines)
c) The city and country in which the activity is to be held
d) The dates on which the activity is to be carried out
e) The name of the coordinator or person in charge of the activity and their e-mail address.

The deadline for submission of proposals is 2nd of February 2024. Decisions on proposals will be communicated by the end of February 2024. Information on accepted activities will be available on the World Congress website.