Foucault Society, March 14: Reading Group on The Courage of Truth

Spring 2012

The Foucault Society Reading Group

Michel Foucault The Courage of Truth
The Government of Self and Others II
Lectures at the College de France, 1983-1984

Upcoming Meetings:
Wednesday, March 14Wednesday, March 28Wednesday, April 18
7:00-9:30pm
CUNY Graduate Center365 Fifth Avenue, Room 5409New York, NY

Our semester-long reading group on Michel Foucault’s final lecture course has gotten off to a great start. We welcome new members. If you would like to register or if you have questions about the group, please contact Kevin Jobe, reading group director.

Open to the public. Suggested donation: $5/meeting.
Registration: foucaultsocietyorg@gmail.com

Reading assignments are below and on our website.
ABOUT THE READING GROUP:

In the manuscript for The Courage of Truth (Palgrave, 2011), Foucault concluded by identifying a central point of contact in the complex relationship between veridiction-governmentality-subjectivation: namely, that of otherness. Taking these “last words” as a guideline, the Foucault Society’s new reading group will examine Foucault’s 1984 lecture course–which ended just before his death on June 25, 1984–as an “unfinished” problematization of truth and otherness. How may we join Foucault in re-thinking truth and government in relation to the problem of the other (l’autre)? How can the relationship to the other allow us, in various ways, to “get free of ourselves,” and to open up new possibilities and relations to truth?

Our close reading of the lecture course will be supplemented by short selections from The Government of Self and Others (Palgrave 2010), as well as Foucault’s earlier works on the history of madness, abnormality, sexuality, and other figures of “otherness.“

Schedule:
Meeting 1: Wednesday, February 8
Lecture: 1 February 1984, First and Second Hours

Meeting 2: Wednesday, February 22
Lecture: 8 February 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 3: Wednesday, March 14Lecture: 15 February 1984, First and Second Hours

Meeting 4: Wednesday, March 28Lecture: 22 February 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 5: Wednesday, April 18
Lecture: 29 February 1984, First and Second Hours
Location and time for all meetings:
7:00-9:30pm
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 5409
We will cover one entire lecture (first and second hours) at each meeting, which will be held approximately every two weeks.
The reading group will continue until June 2012. Future dates will be announced soon.

New members are welcome to join at any time. Some prior familiarity with Foucault's work may be helpful. We ask that participants commit to attending most sessions in order to develop a productive dialogue among group members.

Questions? Please contact Kevin Jobe atfoucaultsocietyorg@gmail.com
Reading Group Director:
Kevin S. Jobe is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His research interests lie at the intersection of political philosophy and the philosophy of race. He presented "The Biopolitics of Homelessness" at the Foucault Society's Colloquium Series in May 2011.

About the Book:
For table of contents and more information about The Courage of Truthfrom Palgrave Macmillan, click here.

About the Foucault Society:
The Foucault Society is an independent, nonprofit educational organization offering a variety of programs dedicated to the critical study of the ideas of Michel Foucault (1926-1984). All of our events are open to the public. We welcome new participants who have an interest in Foucault's work and its impact on diverse areas of inquiry, including critical social theory, philosophy, politics, history, culture, gender/sexuality studies, and the arts.

www.foucaultsociety.orgFacebook Twitter: @foucaultsociety
E-mail: foucaultsocietyorg@gmail.com


“What I would like to stress in conclusion is this: there is no establishment of the truth without an essential position of otherness; the truth is never the same; there can be truth only in the form of the other world and the other life (l’autre monde et de la vie autre).”

–-Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth(manuscript), June 1984


Mark your calendars:

The Foucault Society's Colloquium Series
Spring 2012

Thurs, April 12
Kelsey Borrowman“Plasticization as Necrophilia: Death, Decomposition, and the Inorganic in Foucault”
Thurs, May 17Brooke M. Beloso"'On the Other Side of Bars': Queer Theory, S*x Work and Foucault's Unreason"
Details are on our website.


Foucault Society Fundraiser
Book Sale

Michel Foucault
The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the College de France, 1982-1983(Palgrave, 2010)
Donation: $15

Read the lecture course leading up to Foucault's The Courage of Truth.Email us
to order your copy.

Thank you for your support.