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The Southern Journal of Philosophy, together with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Memphis, and Wiley Publishing, is proud to present:

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Michel Foucault and Phenomenology

The Southern Journal of Philosophy Workshop March 27-28, 2025, The University of Memphis

 

The Southern Journal of Philosophy Workshop 2025 Program

All sessions take place in the Maxine A. Smith University Center (UC,) Fountain View Room (Rm. 350), 3rd Floor.

Thursday, March 27      
1:00-1:20   Opening Reception

1:20-1:30   Opening Remarks

1:30-3:00     Session I   

Chair: Ryan Adams (University of Memphis)
Shawn Gary Françis Huberdeau (Villanova University) 
“The night in which all phenomenological sheep are black: Foucault’s archaeological method shot out of Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger”

Avery Dawson (University of Western Ontario)
“A Transcendentality complementary to historicity? Debates on Foucault’s critical method and phenomenology”

Melanie Swan (University College London)
“Historical transcendentality: Foucault’s 1949 master’s thesis and emergent epistemes”

3:00-3:30      Break

3:30-4:30   Invited Speaker

Chair: Samuel Munroe (University of Memphis)
Bruce Baugh (Thompson Rivers University)  
“Foucault and the historical transcendental: On first looking into Foucault’s La constitution d’un transcendental historique dans la Phénoménologie de l’esprit de Hegel

4:30-5:00      Break

5:00-6:00     Keynote Address

Chair: Laura Hengehold (Case Western Reserve University)
Christophe Bouton (Bordeaux-Montaigne University) 
"The problem of the transcendental from Kant to Hegel. The young Foucault's interpretation of the Phenomenology of Spirit in his 1949 thesis"

7:00          SJP Workshop Reception at Mary-Beth Mader’s home

Friday, March 28
University Center Fountain View Room  

9:30-10:00   Breakfast Reception      

10:00-11:30  Session II   

Chair: Seyran Sam (University of Memphis)
Changyuan Chen (University of Wuppertal)
“The figure of cogito: Foucault and the possibility of transcendental phenomenology”

Leonhard Riep (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main)
“Towards an objective method of intuitive understanding: Foucault’s early criticism of Jaspers’ ‘hermeneutic limitation’”

Jeannette Hicks (University of Guelph)
“‘Caught in the act’: Imagination and wonder in Foucault’s early phenomenology of expression”  

11:30-11:50 Break      

11:50-12:50 Keynote Address 

Chair: Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign )
Elisabetta Basso (University of Pavia) 
“Which phenomenologies behind Foucault's archaeology?"

12:50-2:50  Lunch

2:50-3:50   Invited Speaker 

Chair: Almira Mert (DePaul University)
Kevin Thompson (DePaul University)
“Foucault on the origin of the world: Notes on Phénoménologie et Psychologie (1953-1954)” 

3:50-4:00   Break      

4:00-5:00       Keynote Address 

Chair: Hannah Lyn Venable (University of Mary)
Philippe Sabot (University of Lille)
“From phenomenology to archaeology: Foucault with Merleau-Ponty

5:00-5:15       Break

5:15-6:00       Roundtable with all invited speakers

7:00          Dinner and Memphis Outing


Call for Abstracts

Michel Foucault and Phenomenology

The Southern Journal of Philosophy Workshop March 27-28, 2025, The University of Memphis

Keynote Speakers: Philippe Sabot, Elisabetta Basso, Christophe Bouton

SJP 2025

Foucault 40 years after

How is Michel Foucault’s thought related to the tradition of phenomenology? Studies addressing this question have been overshadowed by scholarship that considers Foucault’s work in relation to other movements in continental philosophy such as critical theory, Marxism, structuralism, and post-structuralism. When the question has been broached, scholars have straightaway had to confront Foucault’s sometimes dismissive, if not hostile, attitude towards phenomenological approaches. For instance, in a 1967 interview (“Who are you, Professor Foucault?”), Foucault describes phenomenology as a totalizing method whose universalist claims seek to account for meaning and knowledge formation through an analysis limited to the lived experience of the transcendent subject. Later, he describes his method of archaeology as aiming “to free history from the grip of phenomenology” (The Archaeology of Knowledge [1969]). However, the basis for well-founded replies to the question has very recently been significantly augmented by the publication of three early Foucault texts. These works represent Foucault’s richest engagement with this tradition and demonstrate a remarkable depth and precision to his early study of phenomenology that were not apparent from his previously published work: 

Binswanger et l’analyse existentielle (Binswanger and Existential Analysis), edited by Elisabetta Basso, Seuil/Gallimard, May 2021;

Phénoménologie et psychologie, 1953-1954 (Phenomenology and Psychology, 1953-1954), edited by Philippe Sabot, Seuil/Gallimard, November 2021;

La constitution d’un transcendantal historique dans la Phénoménologie de l’esprit de Hegel. Mémoire du diplôme d’études supérieures de philosophie (The Constitution of a Historical Transcendental in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Graduate Degree Philosophy Thesis), edited by Christophe Bouton, Vrin, February 2024.

These texts are crucial sources for re-evaluating Foucault’s relation to phenomenology. Our hope is that an event which examines these writings, with keynote addresses from the editors of these three volumes, will help to cultivate exchanges and dialogues that may have previously been stymied by the prominence of Foucault’s more pointed objections to phenomenological approaches.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy workshop aims to provide a timely forum to take the measure of Foucault’s thought on phenomenology, broadly speaking, and to expand and develop a dialogue between Foucault’s philosophy and phenomenology that is both retrospective and prospective. We invite papers that focus on the three recent publications listed above, or on the relationship between Foucault’s thought and phenomenology in general. Papers delivered at the conference will also be published in a peer-reviewed special issue of The Southern Journal of Philosophy (see below for details). 

Workshop Directors: Daniel J. Smith, Mary Beth Mader, Caner Yildirim

Suggested themes for submissions include, but are not limited to:

-Foucault’s reading of eidetic and transcendental methods in phenomenology
-Foucault on existentialist and phenomenological analyses of psychopathology
-Foucault’s reading of phenomenological accounts of psychologism, temporality, intersubjectivity, language, spatiality, affectivity, flesh, lived experience, lifeworld and the world
-Historicity and the archive
-Epokhē and problematization
-Critiques of the cogito
 in Foucault and phenomenology
-Critiques of representation in Foucault and phenomenology
-Receptions of Kant, Nietzsche and Hegel by Foucault and phenomenology
-Foucault’s readings of Freud and Husserl

 

Author Submission Instructions

Submission deadline: December 15, 2024

Selection will be based on long-form abstracts. Abstracts should include a paper title and be between 750-1000 words, prepared for anonymous review. Bibliographic material may be placed at the end and does not count toward the word count. A separate document with the author’s name, university affiliation, department, contact information, and paper title should be included with every submission. The document should indicate whether the author is a faculty member, post-doctoral researcher, doctoral student, or independent scholar.

Email both documents (either as doc. or pdf. files) to The Southern Journal of Philosophy Managing Editor, Ms. Cathy Wilhelm, at cwilhelm@memphis.edu. The subject line of this email should read, “2025 SJP Workshop Submission.”

Submission indicates your intention to include the final version of your paper in the published proceedings. Acceptance to the workshop does not guarantee publication as final work must pass external review. Travel support may become available, depending on the budget. Participants will be notified as needed.

Please direct inquiries to the Editor, Mary Beth Mader, at mmader@memphis.edu

Click here to download a PDF of this Call for Abstracts.

Please find below the link to the SJP website: 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/20416962/call-for-papers/michael-foucault

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