Progressive Geographies

The airport is a totalitarian space; sometimes the truth is hyperbolic.

You re-enter the United States, land of your birth, as part of the stream of arriving passengers. It is an everyday experience. You leave the airplane slowly, on stiff limbs, trickling with the mass of travellers into Newark airport.

The imperatives are issued as soon as you enter the terminal building. No smoking. No cell phones. Stand in line. Fill in your declaration form. Foreigner here. Citizen there. Wait behind the red line till you are called. The armed immigration officer checks your papers, holding the power to pronounce your worthiness to enter this sanctified space.

With the imperatives come the questions. Where are you coming from? Where are you going? As if the answers are clear. As if these are simple questions. The man with the gun, holding your passport, asks, “Where are you flying next?” But he…

Judith Butler‘s Wall Exchange‘Bodies on the street’, delivered at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver last year, has now been posted on YouTube:

And a Q&A the following day with UBC faculty at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies is here:

You can access the text of an early version of the lecture here and here.

Daniel Defert, « Je crois au temps… », Propos recueillis par Guillaume Bellon, Recto/Verso, n° 1, Juin 2007.
Update August 2025: This is now only available on the Wayback machine. Link in title above

Daniel Defert, qui a partagé la vie de Foucault pendant plus de vingt ans, est aujourd’hui propriétaire de l’ensemble des notes et manuscrits laissés par le philosophe au moment de sa mort. Lourd héritage, marqué par le sceau de l’interdit : Foucault, qui répétait souvent à son entourage : « Ne me faites pas le coup de Max Brod avec Kafka », avait en effet pris soin de préciser sur son testament : « Pas de publication posthume ». Deux grands chantiers d’édition ont pourtant été menés depuis sa disparition en juin 1984 : d’abord le recueil des Dits et écrits, qui regroupe les articles, entretiens, ou conférences donnés par l’auteur, ainsi que la…