Some second-hand books connected in part to the ongoing research on Indo-European though in France, the latest volume of the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe and copies of Joseph Vogl, Capital and Ressentiment: A Short History of the Present and Nikolina Bobic and Farzaneh Haghighi (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics, Volume I: Violence, Spectacle and Data – kindly sent by the publisher and editors.
Audio recording of Michel Foucault and Richard Sennett discussing Sexuality and Solitude. The date there is given as 1979, but I think this was actually in November 1980.
The edited transcript was published in 1981 in the London Review of Books It is translated into French in Dits et écrits and reprinted in Essential Works volume I, though without Sennett’s remarks.
I’ve added this to my list of audio and video recordings of Foucault (that list is hard to keep uptodate as things are removed or links change).
Richard Sennett and Michel Foucault, Sennett and Foucault on Sexuality and Solitude (1979)
New Books Network, 2 Feb 2023.
[See site for recording]
In 1979, sociologist and NYIH founder Richard Sennett, and philosopher Michel Foucault, discussed the connections between the history of sexuality and self consciousness. In this episode from the Vault, the two discuss their research and, by extension, the underpinnings of the idea of solitude.
Pierre Hadot, Don’t Forget to Live: Goethe and the Tradition of Spiritual Exercise – University of Chicago Press, trans. Michael Chase, April 2023
The esteemed French philosopher Pierre Hadot’s final work, now available in English.
With a foreword by Arnold I. Davidson and Daniele Lorenzini.
In his final book, renowned philosopher Pierre Hadot explores Goethe’s relationship with ancient spiritual exercises—transformative acts of intellect, imagination, or will. Goethe sought both an intense experience of the present moment as well as a kind of cosmic consciousness, both of which are rooted in ancient philosophical practices. These practices shaped Goethe’s audacious contrast to the traditional maxim memento mori (Don’t forget that you will die) with the aim of transforming our ordinary consciousness. Ultimately, Hadot reveals how Goethe cultivated a deep love for life that brings to the forefront a new maxim: Don’t forget to live.
Andrew Curley, Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo – University of Arizona Press, April 2023
For almost fifty years, coal dominated the Navajo economy. But in 2019 one of the Navajo Nation’s largest coal plants closed.
This comprehensive new work offers a deep dive into the complex inner workings of energy shift in the Navajo Nation. Geographer Andrew Curley, a member of the Navajo Nation, examines the history of coal development within the Navajo Nation, including why some Diné supported coal and the consequences of doing so. He explains the Navajo Nation’s strategic choices to use the coal industry to support its sovereignty as a path forward in the face of ongoing colonialism. Carbon Sovereignty demonstrates the mechanism of capitalism through colonialism and the construction of resource sovereignty, in both the Navajo Nation’s embrace and its rejection of a coal economy.
For the people of the Navajo Nation, energy sovereignty is dire and personal. Thanks to on-the-ground interviews with Diné coal workers, environmental activists, and politicians, Curley documents the real consequences of change as they happened. While some Navajo actors have doubled down for coal, others have moved toward transition. Curley argues that political struggles ultimately shape how we should understand coal, capitalism, and climate change. The rise and fall of coal magnify the nuance and complexity of change. Historical and contemporary issues intermingle in everyday life with lasting consequences.
Alain Corbin, A History of the Wind, trans. William Peniston – Polity, November 2022
Everyone knows the wind’s touch, its presence, its force. Sometimes it roars and howls, at other times we hear its wistful sighs and feel its soothing caresses. Since antiquity, humans have borne witness to the wind and relied on it to navigate the seas. And yet, despite its presence at the heart of human experience, the wind has evaded scrutiny in our chronicles of the past.
In this brilliantly original volume, Alain Corbin sets out to illuminate the wind’s storied history. He shows how, before the nineteenth century, the noisy emptiness of wind was experienced and described only according to the sensations it provoked. Imagery of the wind featured prominently in literature, from the ancient Greek epics through the Renaissance and romanticism to the modern era, but little was known about where the wind came from and where it went. It was only in the late eighteenth century, with the discovery of the composition of air, that scientists began to understand the nature of wind and its trajectories. From that point on, our understanding of the wind was shaped by meteorology, which mapped the flows of winds and currents around the globe. But while science has enabled us to understand the wind and, in some respects, to harness it, the wind has lost nothing of its mysterious force. It still has the power to destroy, and in the wind’s ethereal presence we can still feel its connection with creation and death.
Sida, prisons, décolonisation : la vie militante de Daniel Defert, France Culture (radio), fév 2023.
Sida, prisons, décolonisation : la vie militante de Daniel Defert, France Culture (radio), fév 2023.
© Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons – cc-by-sa-3.0, Aucun(e)
À propos de la série
Une série d’entretiens proposée par Virginie Bloch-Lainé. Réalisation : Laetitia Coia. Prise de son : Yves le Hors. 5 épisodes.
Tout au long de son existence, dont 20 années aux côtés du philosophe Michel Foucault, Daniel Defert a lutté pour et avec les autres. Ouvriers, prisonniers, colonisés, malades du sida… Une vie en cinq entretiens avec le sociologue fondateur de l’association Aides.
En 1984, Daniel Defert crée Aides, la première association française de lutte contre le sida qu’il dirige jusqu’en 1991. Le virus à l’époque tue rapidement ; c’est une hécatombe. Michel Foucault, compagnon de Daniel Defert pendant vingt ans, vient d’en mourir, mais le silence est gardé sur la cause de sa mort : “J’avais à résoudre un problème…
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A photo I took of Daniel Defert in 2015 when I visited him in Foucault’s former apartment on the rue de Vaugirard. He’s signing a copy of Un Vie Politique for me.
I’m very sorry to hear the news of the death of Daniel Defert, partner of Foucault, important editor of his work, academic and activist. I first met Defert in 1998, and he was always very generous and supportive of my work. We met at several conferences, and in 2015 he kindly gave me some time to talk about Foucault’s work at his apartment, as I was doing the early work for my series of books on Foucault. He will be much missed. If you read French, Un vie politique gives a good sense of his activism.
Daniel Defert, philosophe, sociologue et figure de la lutte contre le sida, est mort
Daniel Defert (2015)
by Claude Truong-Ngoc
L’universitaire a été à l’origine de la création de l’association Aides en 1984, après la disparition de son compagnon, Michel Foucault.
Par Franck Nouchi
Le Monde, 7 janvier 2023
[Editor: I will add further links as they come in]
French Anti-AIDS Activist Daniel Defert Dies At 85 – AFP – Agence France Presse, February 7, 2023
French sociologist Daniel Defert, who was a leading figure in the country’s fight against AIDS, died Tuesday at the age of 85, according to an organisation he founded.
“It is with deep sadness that we learn this evening of the death of Daniel Defert,” Aides, a French anti-AIDS organisation, tweeted on Tuesday.
“He leaves behind him the indelible memory of a life of activism and the principles of action that the 2,200 activists…
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Some recently bought new and second-hand books, including the paperback of Jing Tsu, Kingdom of Characters: A Tale of Language, Obsession, and Genius in Modern China.
