Good advice on ‘A Realistic Summer Writing Schedule’ from The Chronicle

Posted on June 26, 2015 by stuartelden

Lots of people have been sharing this good advice on ‘A Realistic Summer Writing Schedule‘ from The Chronicle Vitae.

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a sneak preview of the fourth edition of Visual Methodologies

Posted on June 26, 2015 by stuartelden

Gillian Rose gives an interesting insight into the revision process for the fourth edition of her book Visual Methodologies.

profgillian's avatarvisual/method/culture

I’ve been working on the fourth edition of Visual Methodologies on and off since January, squeezing it in the gaps between way too many other projects. As a result, it’s rather hard to have an overview of the beast (also because I seem to find it impossible to delete any more than a few sentences and a handful of references from each new edition). But I’m now facing the final run-through of the whole thing, when of course it will be lovingly burnished into a seamless whole, cough cough.

So I thought it might be interesting to note down a few of the things that I have learnt so far in preparing this new edition.  More may follow as I reread things I’ve forgotten that I’ve written.  (Yes, yes, I know, I need a holiday.)

1) one big change (for me at least) is that I’ve added a fourth site…

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Massimo Cacciari, The Witholding Power: An Essay on Political Theology – forthcoming from Bloomsbury

Posted on June 26, 2015 by stuartelden

Massimo Cacciari, The Witholding Power: An Essay on Political Theology – forthcoming from Bloomsbury in December 2015.

9781472580498

The first English translation of his work, The Witholding Power, offers a fascinating introduction to the thought of Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari, a prominent and provocative figure in Italian philosophy and political thought. Cacciari is a notoriously complex thinker but this title offers a starting point for entering into the very heart of his thinking. The Witholding Power provides a comprehensive and synthetic insight into his interpretation of Christian political theology and leftist Italian political theory more generally.

The theme of katechon – originally a biblical concept which has been developed into a political concept – has been absolutely central to the work of Italian philosophers such as Agamben and Eposito for nearly twenty years. In The Witholding Power, Cacciari sets forth his startlingly original perspective on the influence the theological-political questions have traditionally exerted upon ideas of power, sovereignty and the relationship between political and religious authority.

With a lengthy introduction by Howard Caygill contextualising the work within the history of Italian thought, this title will offer those coming to Cacciari for the first time a searing insight into his political, theological and philosophical milieu.

Thanks to Philippe Theophanidisfor the link, who also points out this is not the first English translation, and points to // // <meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0; URL=/?_fb_noscript=1″ />The Unpolitical. On the Radical Critique of Political Reason and The Necessary Angel. There is also a collection on Architecture and Nihilism. Incidentally, when did ‘withholding’ lose its double-h?

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Pluto Summer Sale – 40% off all books until July 10th

Posted on June 25, 2015 by stuartelden

Pluto books sale

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Books received – review work for Verso: Wark, Ross, Sartre, Jameson, Benjamin, Coleman

Posted on June 25, 2015 by stuartelden

Two recent translation proposals reviewed for Verso – these books and a few pre-ordered in recompense.

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Derrida’s Second Volume of Death Penalty Lectures to be released in late October

Posted on June 25, 2015 by stuartelden

Volume II of Derrida’s Séminaire La peine de mort forthcoming in October.

Peter Gratton's avatarPHILOSOPHY IN A TIME OF ERROR

I was hoping it would be out in time to grab while in Paris during the middle of next month (it comes out Oct. 31), not least since I’ll be at the Collegium Phaenomenologicum the last week of July, directed by Michael Naas and with lectures by Peggy Kamuf, on the first year’s lectures. Here is from Derrida’s summary for l’EHESS of the second year of lectures:

Nous avons poursuivi les recherches engagées l’année précédente, en déployant les mêmes questions (autour de trois concepts : exception, souveraineté, cruauté) et en suivant les mêmes fils conducteurs. … Les discours de Kant et de Hegel ont été, de ce point de vue, au foyer de notre travail, qu’il s’agisse des débats avec Beccaria autour de la Révolution française, du régicide, de la Terreur ou de la grande tradition de la loi du talion. Au sujet de cette dernière, nous avons relu quelques textes bibliques et…

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Theatre, Performance, Foucault! – programme 2015

Posted on June 25, 2015 by stuartelden

Full details of the ‘Theatre, Performance, Foucault!’ event I’ll be speaking at next month.

Clare O'Farrell's avatarFoucault News

Theatre, Performance, Foucault!

 One-day symposium hosted by the Theatre, Performance and Philosophy working group of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)

 Saturday, 4th July 2015
King’s College London
K0.31 Small Committee Room, Strand London UK WC2R 2LS

Registration site

Welcome

9:30-10am Welcome, registration and tea/coffee

Session 1: Theatre/Foucault/Theatre
10am – 11:30am

Mark Robson (University of Dundee), “Foucault and Theatre: Playing Placeless Place”

Stuart Elden (University of Warwick), “Foucault and Shakespeare: Ceremony, Theatre and Politics”

Aline Wiame (Université Libre de Bruxelles), “Foucault’s Genealogical Theatre of Truth and its Impact on Performance Philosophy”

break

Interruption/Provocation 1: ‘Murmurs of Resemblance’
11:45am –12:15pm

P.A. Skantze (University of Roehampton), “The Table that Says Its Name”

Eleni Kolliopoulou (independent artist, Turin), “Dead can dance” and “8-9”

Lunch

12:15 – 1:30pm Please join us for lunch at Fernandez & Wells, in the Somerset House courtyard

Session 2: Forms, Methods and Methodologies
1:30pm – 3pm

Magnolia…

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Books received – Foucault, Lefebvre, Cohen, Parikka, Esposito, Baert, Müller

Posted on June 24, 2015 by stuartelden

IMG_0824The 1972 re-edition of Foucault’s Histoire de la folie, and the newly translated Language, Madness and Desire, Lefebvre’s doctoral thesis on the Pyrenees, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman, Jussi Parikka’s Geology of Media, Roberto Esposito’s Persons and Things, Patrick Baert’s The Existentialist Moment, and Lothar Müller’s White Magic: The Age of Paper. The UMP and Polity ones are recompense for review work.

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Exercises in the history of ideas: an interview with Stuart Elden — Dale Leorke & Suneel Jethani

Posted on June 24, 2015 by stuartelden

Dale Leorke & Suneel Jethani, “Exercises in the history of ideas: an interview with Stuart Elden“. The full version of this interview, which previously appeared in edited form on the Theory, Culture & Society website, is now available as an open-access pamphlet from the Research Unit in Public Cultures at the University of Melbourne.

rupc-exercises-ideasThe following interview with Elden was conducted by Dale Leorke and Suneel Jethani on 4 March, 2014. It was recorded in Melbourne while Elden was visiting Monash University as part of the Monash–Warwick alliance, on the same day he gave a lecture on Foucault’s La Société punitive at The University of Melbourne. The interview recording was transcribed and Elden was given the opportunity to revise the text and was also asked several follow-up questions. But we have sought to keep the original discussion as conversational and as close to the original transcript as possible, and Elden has very kindly complied with this request. Most texts mentioned throughout the interview are listed in the bibliography at the end of this paper.

As the beginning of this introduction points out, Elden is a highly rigorous scholar, so fittingly the interview begins with a discussion of his approach to researching, reading and writing. It also focuses on his relationship with Lefebvre, particularly his thoughts on Lefebvre’s ongoing contemporary relevance in light of the publication of his previously unpublished manuscript Towards an Architecture of Enjoyment (2014) and the widespread interest in his concept of rhythmanalysis.

The interview then focuses largely on Elden’s current projects, particularly his work on Foucault, geopolitics, the relationship between territory and urbanism and Shakespeare’s plays. It provides a snapshot of Elden’s present thinking on his works in their various stages as they continue to evolve and develop. As might be expected, like Elden’s work itself the interview is also replete with references to works from a vast terrain of disciplines, thinkers, and perspectives, both past and present.

Posted in Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, My Publications, Shakespearean Territories, Terror and Territory, The Birth of Territory, urban/urbanisation, William Shakespeare | 1 Comment

“Before the Punitive Society: The Inquiry of Théories et institutions pénales”, plenary lecture – Discipline and Punish Forty Years On, Nottingham 11 September 2015

Posted on June 24, 2015 by stuartelden

Here’s the abstract for my plenary lecture to the Time Served: Discipline and Punish Forty Years On conference, to be held at The Galleries of Justice, Nottingham, 11-12 September 2015.

Before the Punitive Society: The Inquiry of Théories et institutions pénales

This presentation will situate Discipline and Punish in relation to two of Foucault’s lecture courses at the Collège de France, Théories et institutions pénales and La société punitive. Delivered in 1971-1972 and early 1973, these courses develop both theoretical tools of analysis and study material that would be utilized in the book. Yet there are important divergences too – neither course can be seen as merely preparatory. Theoretically, while the question of power is central, the courses are the second and third part of Foucault’s initial triptych of courses, which treat the interlinked themes of measure, inquiry and examination. The focus here will be particularly on the notion of the inquiry, analysed in the Théories et institutions pénales course in relation to popular revolt, trial by ordeal and the question of proof. In the second half of the course, Foucault examines a variety of economic, political and military apparatuses. To interrogate them he explores a wide set of themes, including legal codes, crimes and punishments, different mechanisms of rule in medieval Europe and pre-state political formations, and in particular the code of talion – a punishment of retribution on the basis of equivalence. This analysis provides some valuable detail on the system of punishment that the punitive, or disciplinary society displaces.

I’ll be speaking about this course at other events in the next few months. I’ll be speaking about the ceremony in “Foucault and Shakespeare: Ceremony, Theatre and Politics”, at the Theatre, Performance, Foucault! workshop in July, and have submitted an abstract for the Historical Materialism conference on the engagement with historical debates about the Nu-pieds. My review of the course can be found at Berfrois, and it will be a major focus of the Foucault: The Birth of Power book.

Posted in Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, William Shakespeare | 3 Comments