Engaging Foucault

The conference “Engaging Foucault” will gather international and regional theorists who have engaged with Foucault’s work, either endorsing or disputing the main premises of his work. The intended aim of the conference is to open up space for a general discussion of the actuality of Foucault’s work.

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Cartography of Exhaustion

Conference on Biopolitics “Cartography of Exhaustion” by Peter Pál Pelbart, School of Humanities and Languages and the Biopolitical Research Network.

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Laurier Seminar on Italian Theory

Recently a debate has emerged about the “Italian difference.” In Italy, there is a growing consensus that what makes Italian Theory different is its permanent opposition to state and biopolitical forms of power, grounded engagement in the critique of capitalism and an internal disposition of productive conflict. Antonio Negri claims that what distinguishes Italian Theory is the constituent affirmation of difference, which does not lead to separation and isolation but to resistance and creative transformation (2005). Whereas Roberto Esposito argues that Italian Theory is characterized by the immanentization of antagonism because at its core it is a theory of conflict and struggle (2012).

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Neoliberalism + Biopolitics Conference

Neoliberalism + Biopolitics Conference is the final international event of semester-long series named Neoliberalism + Biopolitics Working Group which is investigating the role of neoliberalism and biopolitics as both contemporary objects of study and paradigms of analysis for humanistic and social- scientific inquiry. While the two concepts were originally linked at both the historical and conceptual level by Michel Foucault’s 1978-79 Collège de France lectures, their contemporary usage extends far beyond this earlier articulation. Today, neoliberalism and biopolitics are increasingly deployed as conceptual tools to describe and evaluate new forms of political power, social control, technological developments, and economic orders. The proliferation of these terms, however, has also placed their enduring diagnostic value in doubt. This working group thus hopes to call these terms into question, refine their analytical precision, and test their explanatory potential against empirical investigations of contemporary social, political, and economic life. In particular, it hopes to interrogate the ways in which neoliberalism may function as a form of “biopolitics”—that is, the ways in which neoliberalism may develop and deploy new techniques of governance for the regulation and transformation of human life.

Sessions begin 17 september and are open to Critical Theory students and faculty, and other campus and public audiences. Meetings feature conversations on assigned readings and presentations by guest speakers including Étienne Balibar (University of Paris), Julia Elyachar (UC Irvine), and Lisa Rofel (UC Santa Cruz). The series culminates in a conference on February 26-28, 2015 that brings major scholars from diverse fields to discuss new research on these topics.

For more information about the conference and sessions of the Working Group, see http://criticaltheory.berkeley.edu/ 

Citizenship, Orientalism and the Commons

The event takes theatre to be a laboratory for the performances of critical political imaginaries on citizenship. Its conceptual core is a dialogue and translation between art, politics, and economics with a critical reflection on acts and practices of public engagement, common property, debt, and co-work. Bringing together scholars, artists and activists the event xplores participatory forms of knowledge production, livelihood, civic action and resistance in and outside Europe through collective rehearsals, discussions and staged film performances. The Teatro Valle Occupato becomes our stage in which such political, ethical and aesthetic experiments are tested and played out.

 

Colloquium: Bernard Gendron, “Foucault’s 1968”

Foucault Society invites to the Colloquium Series on Thursday, Feb 16, with “Foucault’s 1968,” a talk by Bernard Gendron, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Gendron argues that Foucault’s turn to political militancy within a post-1968 horizon was the chief catalyst for redirecting his theoretical work in the years, 1969-1974, leading to the publication of Discipline and Punish. 

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MANAGING LIFE

Conference and Exhibition

25th of May  /  05th of October  /  07th of December
Belgrade 2012

 * 25th of May 2012 

Biopolitics Today

 

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Grupo de Estudios en Biopolítica

El Grupo de Estudios en Biopolítica consiste en una sesión mensual donde profesores, doctorandos y estudiantes de Magíster presentan brevemente un trabajo en progreso enviado con una semana de antelación a los asistentes. La idea es recibir aportes a las distintas lecturas y abrir el debate entre los estudiantes y académicos.

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Tercer Ciclo de Debates Contemporáneos

La Red de Biopolítica, junto al Instituto de Humanidades de la Universidad Diego Portales, invitan a usted al “Tercer ciclo de Debates Biopolíticos contemporáneos”. Tras las dos experiencias anteriores, esta vez se busca problematizar y debatir en torno a los temas biopolítica y soberanía, la concepción de vida y sus implicancias en la biopolítica, así como las lecturas económicas sobre el gobierno de la vida. El ciclo contará con  la presencia de destacados académicos e integrantes de nuestra Red que abrirán la discusión en 4 jornadas distintas. El formato es tipo seminario, por lo que se podrá acceder al manuscrito con una semana de anticipación por medio de nuestra web

Seminario en línea “La potencia de la filosofía. Introducción al pensamiento de Giorgio Agamben”

El pensamiento de Giorgio Agamben plantea una serie de temas que se repiten de distintas maneras a lo largo de su vastísima trayectoria intelectual: la relación entre el hombre como viviente y el lenguaje; el problema conexo de la antropogénesis; la relación ontológica entre potencia y acto y sus consecuencias políticas: la relación entre biopolítica y soberanía; la cuestión de la comunidad y las formas de poder contemporáneas; la teología política y el mesianismo; la forma-de-vida y el uso en el marco de una ética de las profanaciones. A pesar de que las interrogaciones suelen repetirse, Agamben no pretende desarrollar un sistema filosófico. Por ello, en el seminario exploraremos estos temas como una serie de círculos concéntricos que apuntan a la cuestión fundamental para su filosofía: la necesidad de reelaborar la ontología a partir de una reconsideración de la potencia y su relación con el acto.