[csaa-forum] Brisbane - CHED Annual Lecture, Dec 2

[Melissa Gregg]

The Centre for the History of European Discourses (CHED) Annual Lecture

Prof. Colin Gordon, Thursday, 2nd December 2004. 4-6 pm, The James 
Birrell Room, UQ Staff & Graduates Club.

Citizenship, Conduct, and Spirituality in Histories of Thought

This lecture looks at some questions of method in the history of 
thought in the light of newly published work by Foucault and some 
neighbouring thinkers. Foucault's work on governmentality apparently 
distances itself from the orthodox history of political thought by 
distinguishing the pastoral 'shepherd game' from the republican 'city 
game'. Yet at certain points his path intersects with the work of the 
Cambridge school on civic republicanism and the problematisation of 
'wealth and virtue'. Foucault's later work on care of the self, 
truth-telling and ethics draws on, but also departs from Hadot's 
influential work on philosophies as modes of life. I will try to 
assess how far this distinctive viewpoint helps us to envisage a 
unified genealogy of early modern citizenship and governmentality.

Colin Gordon met Foucault and began translating and writing about his 
work in the late 1970s, while doing philosophy research at Oxford and 
getting to know a number of Foucault's co-researchers. He edited 
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77 
(Harvester, 1980); published much Foucault-related work in the 
journal I&C and in Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. eds.: The 
Foucault Effect: Essays in governmentality (Harvester, 1991). He also 
selected contents and wrote the introduction to James D. Faubion ed. 
Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Volume 3, Power, 2000. In 2004 
he organized a conference on Foucault's recently published lectures, 
held in September at the London School of Economics 
http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html. Professionally, Colin 
works in the field of health informatics r&d, as the Director, NHSIA 
Disease Management Systems Programme, Royal Brompton Hospital 
(London) and Chair, British Medical Informatics Society.

The Centre for the History of European Discourses (CHED) acknowledges 
the support of the European Philosophy Research Group (EPRG) in the 
School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics (HPRC) for Colin 
Gordon's visit.

For further details, contact Dr Simon Duffy (email sbd at uq.edu.au).