Founded in 2016, Intensive views itself as a counterbalance to seminar discussions which, for reasons of necessity, can tend to speed through a text, pausing only to discuss the "greatest hits." We propose, instead, to create the time and space to linger with the work of a single thinker, unpacking the texts and ideas which are frequently cited and infrequently assigned. This fall, we will read and discuss three years of Foucault's lectures: Society Must Be Defended!, Security Territory Population and The Birth of Biopolitics.
In previous semesters we've tackled György Lukács's The Theory of the Novel and selected chapters from Fredric Jameson's Marxism and Form, selected essays by Sylvia Wynter, Capital Vol. I, Karen Barad's Meeting the Universe Halfway, Derrida's Of Grammatology, Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, The Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari. Intensive meets biweekly.
Intensive is generously supported by SASgov.
Session 1: Society Must Be Defended Lectures 1-5 (pp. 1-114) - Thurs. 9/23, 4-5:30 pm, Perelman Quadrangle
Session 2: Society Must Be Defended Lectures 6-11 (pp. 115-263) - TBA, Week of 10/4
Session 3: Security Territory Population Lectures 1-7 (pp. 1-190) - TBA, Week of 10/18
Session 4: Security Territory Population Lectures 8-13 (pp. 191-358) - TBA, Week of 11/1
Session 5: The Birth of Biopolitics Lectures 1-4 (pp. 1-100) - TBA, Week of 11/15
Session 6: The Birth of Biopolitics Lectures 5-8 (pp. 101-214) - TBA, Week of 11/29
Session 7:The Birth of Biopolitics Lectures 9-12 (pp. 215-316) - TBA, Week of 12/13
Please contact Hannah LeClair (hleclair @sas.upenn.edu) or Michael Shea (shea1@sas.upenn.edu) with any questions.