Summer of Foucault September 2, 2009
Posted by Andy in Foucault.Tags: Collège de France, Foucault, Le Courage de la Vérité
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This summer has been a great summer for Foucault Studies. Personally, I started it off with an application to the Norwegian research council for a post-doc on Foucault and Theology: yup, I’m going for the strikingly obvious.
On the 25th June, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of his death, which is being marked by books, conferences, etc. There’s also a conference coming up in Lund on The politics of life which I’m really frustrated to miss.
And then, just to make us really happy, Berkeley library have published as mp3 files most of the Collège de France lectures that are also available in book form! All that scouring the net is now over: they’re here. And they’re mostly of great quality too. Even if your spoken French is as rusty as mine, it only takes a couple lectures of getting used to the voice and style and you can really start taking the lectures in. This includes the theologically relevant governmentality lectures on Security, Territory and Population, and the unique economic analyses, Birth of Biopolitics. There are also the lectures I summarised earlier this year, The Courage of Truth.
There are also some lectures there in English (including those previously published as Fearless Speech), so lack of French doesn’t hinder your enjoyment.
Update: I forgot to mention that French mag Le Point published in Jule one of the unpublished interviews with Foucault with the bold title “Foucault was not revolutionary”. Not really unpublished this time (they did this in 2004 too): it was Roger-Pol Droit that did some interviews in 1975 and has now published them as a book in French called “Interviews“. My thanks to Morthen Sørlie for keeping me on my toes in this respect!
Joy…
ad absurdum 