GOVERNMENT OF SELF, GOVERNMENT OF OTHERS
Michel Foucault’s last lecture series at Collège de France constitute a unity that testifies a shift in his thought. This shift deepens and expands the course of his preceding works concerning the genealogy of subjectivity, while, at the same time, adding to it a significant ethical and political dimension. Foucault returns to the practices of the self in antiquity and looks at the birth of the techniques of truth that allow us to understand how the Western subject has developed from the creation of particular relationships with its own body and other subjectivities. At the same time, these courses put in evidence the relationship between truth and power which lies at the core of Western forms of power and even Western democracy, thus inciting us to question our current political environment and face some political challenges of our time. Finally, Foucault’s concern in these last years with the technologies of ethical self-formation through what he calls “care of the self” sheds new light on his philosophical endeavor as a whole and situates his reflections at the center of contemporaneous moral debates.
On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of The Hermeneutics of the Subject (1981-1982) and celebrating the conclusion of the publication of all the lecture courses from the 1980s – from On the Government of the Living (1979-1980) to The Courage of Truth (1984) –, this conference aims to (re)launch the critical debate on the last stage of Foucault’s thought, evaluating in what way and to which extent the perspectives that Foucault offers in this period might help us to unravel modernity and also give us tools to ethically and politically understand and transform our present.
João Constâncio (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Philippe Sabot (Université de Lille)
Luca Lupo (Universitá della Calabria)
Ernani Chaves (Universidade Federal do Pará)
João Luís Lisboa (Coordinator of the Philosophy Department)
Chair: Gianfranco Ferraro
Amélie Berger-Soraruff (University of Dundee, UK), “Why We Should Take Care of Ourselves: Foucault According to Stiegler”
Dominika Partyga (London School of Economics, UK), “Judith Butler on Self-Crafting: Between Nietzsche and Foucault”
Chair: Susana Viegas
Chair: Luís de Sousa
Laurence Barry (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel), “Truth, Government, Subjectivity”
Edgar Straehle (University of Barcelona, Spain), “On authority: a discussion between Foucault and Arendt”
Chair: Marta Faustino
Andrea Teti (University of Aberdeen, UK), “Rethinking Foucault’s ‘Confessing Animal’”
Kurt Borg (Staffordshire University, UK), “The Subversive Truth-Telling of Trauma: Survivors as Parrhesiastes”
Chair: Marília Muylaert
Chair: Gianfranco Ferraro
Sam O’Brien (Monash University, Australia), “Parrhesia, Self-Government and the Political”
Valeria Gammella (University of Naples Federico II, Italy), “La «conjoncture socratique»: la parrêsia philosophique comme tâche éthique et politique”
Chair: Bruno Dias
Chair: Marta Faustino
Bruno Dias (Centro de Filosofia/University of Lisbon, Portugal), “Critique of power within the bounds of mere resistance: the political uses of the late Foucault”
Antonio Moretti (University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Italy), "The issue of power between will to truth and parrhesiastic subjectivation"
Chair: Bartholomew Ryan
Matko Krce-Ivancic (University of Manchester, UK), “The care of self: is it perpetuating neoliberalism?”
Rainer Mühlhoff (Free University of Berlin, Germany), “Governing by Affect. Subject and Power in post-industrial economy
Chair: Luís de Sousa
Chair: Marta Faustino
José Caselas (Centro de Filosofia/University of Lisbon, Portugal), “A questão política em Foucault e Agamben: do Cuidado de Si ao Uso de Si”
Susana Viegas (IFILNOVA/New University of Lisbon, Portugal), “A dobra e a anulação do sujeitar-se nos filmes de Joachim Trier”
Chair: Luís de Sousa
Élise Escalle (HAR/Paris West University Nanterre, France), “Notes towards a critical history of «musicalities». The use of musical pleasures and the care of the self in the 4th book of «Περί Μουσικής» («On Music») by Philodemus of Gadara”
Erik Zimmerman (The New School for Social Research, USA), “Defending the Care of the Self from an Ethics of Self-Care”
Chair: Gianfranco Ferraro