Spring 2012 Reading Group: Foucault’s The Courage of Truth

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–Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth (unpublished manuscript), June 1984

Our new reading group has gotten off to a great start.  New members are still welcome to join our discussion of Foucault’s final lecture course, The Courage of Truth: The Government of Self and Others II: Lectures at the College de France, 1983-1984 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

Summer 2012 Schedule:
Wed, June 6 — Reading:  “7 March 1984, First and Second Hours”
Wed, June 20 — Reading: “14 March 1984, First and Second Hours”

Both meetings: 7:00-9:30pm at CUNY Graduate Center, Room 5409.  If you would like to participate, please email Kevin Jobe, Reading Group Director: foucaultsocietyorg@gmail.com.

Description
In the manuscript for The Courage of Truth, 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 Spring 2012 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 14
Lecture:  15 February 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 4: NEW DATE–Wednesday, March 21  [Please note: March 28 meeting cancelled.]
Lecture:  22 February 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 5: Wednesday, April 18
Lecture:  29 February 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 6:  Wednesday, June 6
Lecture:  7 March 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 7:  Wednesday, June 20
Lecture:  14 March, 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 8:  TBD
Lecture:  21 March, 1984, First and Second Hours
Meeting 9:  TBD
Lecture:  28 March, 1984, First and Second Hours
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.  
Background Handout (2-22-12):   Kevin S. Jobe, “Parresiastic Game as Form of Veridiction: Situating parresia within a ‘history of the ontologies of truth'”
Registration
The reading group is open to the public.  New members are still welcome to join the group.  Some familiarity with Foucault’s work may be helpful.   In order to develop a productive dialogue, we ask that participants commit to attending  most meetings.  If you have questions or would like to register, please contact Kevin S. Jobe at foucaultsocietyorg@gmail.com. 
About the book
For table of contents and more information about The Courage of Truth, click here. 
 Updated: May 23, 2012
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