The conference was very good, and my lecture seemed to be well received. There were a lot of questions and good discussion afterwards, which I always take to be a good sign. Lots of interest in the course I was talking about, which is understandable given its content and surprises, but also in the claims I was making about the relation between the course and the G.I.P. A few people asked if I had plans to publish the piece, but at the moment I’m thinking I will probably save it back for the Foucault book I want to write. But if the conference gets turned into a publication – there are, as far as I know, currently no plans for this – or some other outlet seems interested, I might tidy it up. I did write that briefer review of the course, but the paper is obviously much more detailed. Unfortunately it wasn’t recorded, so no audio will be available.

It was good to see Stephen Shapiro again – we started at Warwick at the same time – and Mark Kelly – whose PhD I had examined. They both also gave keynotes, along with Anne Schwan and Couze Venn, who I’d not met before. Stephen and Anne were talking, in part, about their new book How to Read Foucault’s Discipline and Punish which looks very good.

The rest of the conference was made up of panels, and there were 3 or 4 at the same time. Understandable, but a shame since I could have happily gone along to any of them. Lots of good interesting readings of Foucault and uses of his ideas in a wide range of areas. You can find the pdf of the programme here.