Truth in the Late Foucault

Keynote Speakers

• Sandra Boehringer (Universit  de Strasbourg)
• Alex Dressler (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Edward McGushin (Stonehill College)
• Special Event: “Foucault: A Polemical Dialogue”
• David Greven (University of South Carolina) and Marc D mont (Centre College)

Call for Papers

With the publication of the long-awaited volume 4 of the History of Sexuality, Confessions of the Flesh, the shape of the final Foucault is now brought into stark relief. During the last five years of
his life, Foucault was above all concerned with how the subject formed itself to be a teller of truth, both about and to itself and about and to others. This involved both the genealogy of sexuality but
also political truths and truths relative to the technologies and aesthetics of our existence. All of these elements, Foucault argues, have a complex history that can be studied. None of this
means that there is no such thing as truth, that truth does not refer to things that are real, or that truth is merely a ruse for power. It does mean that truth is never simple, never self-evident, and always
constructed within history and between people and their institutions. As Foucault observes in Subjectivity and Truth, “We have to ask ourselves about the fact that there exists, beyond simply
things, discourses. We have to pose this problem: why is there, beyond the real, the true” (240). This conference invites paper and panel proposals on all aspects of truth in the late Foucault.

Possible topics might include:

• Truth and confession
• Sexuality and truth
• What is truth in Foucault
• Foucault and Hadot on Ancient Philosophy
• Truth in Heidegger and Foucault
• Nietzschean truth in the late Foucault
• Foucault on Kant’s “What is Enlightenment”?
• The aesthetics of truth
• The technology of truth
• Spiritual practices
• Truth and power
• Governing the self and others