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Early Career Researcher Network for Sustainable Development

Foucault: 40 Years After – Resistance and pleasure in Foucault

IGSD, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology, invite you to a two-day workshop

"Resistance and Pleasure in Foucault: Recovering a Lost Connection?"

This seminar is part of a global network commemorating the 40th anniversary of Michel Foucault’s legacy. As one of over 50 venues across five continents, we are proud to contribute to this. World Congress in celebration of Foucault’s enduring influence on philosophy, political theory, and the humanities.

Workshop Overview:

Join us for a two-day transdisciplinary event exploring Michel Foucault's profound contributions to the ideas of power, resistance, and pleasure. Titled "Resistance and Pleasure in Foucault: Recovering a Lost Connection?"

Event Details:

Hybrid-Seminar

  • Date: October 25 2024
  • Location: R1.13 , Ramphal Building, University of Warwick, Online
  • Time: 2pm - 5pm
  • Hosted by: Dr Elena Vasiliou, Sociology, University of Warwick and Emellyne Forman, Institute for Global Sustainable Development

Zine Making

Explore the themes of pleasure and resistance in the DIY zine-making workshop. This will be an informal friendly space to get together and create artwork inspired by Foucault's work.

Key Topics:

    • Re-establishing the link between resistance and pleasure in Foucault’s work
    • Decolonial critiques and re-interpretations of Foucault
    • Power structures, surveillance, and their connection to pleasure
    • Queering Foucault: Exploring gender, sexuality and drugs
Registration Closed

Confirmed Speakers:

Dr Alex Dymock

Goldsmiths University

Alex Dymock's research focuses on criminal law and criminal justice, sexuality, drugs, feminist and queer theory. Her current research focuses on gender, sexuality, and cultures of drug use, particularly within a project funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. This project investigates the underground use of psychedelics to manage sexual trauma, amidst a resurgence in research advocating for the legalization of psychedelics as therapeutic medicines. Previously, she led a comprehensive project on the past, present, and future of sex on drugs, funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Kane Race

University of Sydney

Kane Race is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. The primary focus of his research is the variable articulation and elaboration of agency within drug discourses, which he explores drawing on approaches and insights from cultural studies, queer theory and Science and Technology Studies. He is internationally recognised for the original contributions he has made to the fields of HIV social research, critical drug studies, and studies of digital sex, where his conceptualisation of ‘counterpublic health’ has influenced a generation of critical health and sexuality scholars committed to articulating the political dynamics, stakes and cultural processes entailed in attending to the health and wellbeing of minoritized groups. His work has produced new understandings and approaches to care practices in the context of biomedical, digital and other transformations with demonstrated impacts on policy as well as critical scholarship across the humanities and social sciences.

Professor Oliver Davis
University College Cork
Oliver Davis is Professor of French at University College Cork and Editor of Modern & Contemporary France. He has published on Foucault and the queer pleasure of drugs in Lisa Downing (ed.), After Foucault (CUP, 2018) and has recently completed a monograph on the political implications of the ‘psychedelic renaissance’. In other work he has drawn extensively on Foucault to analyse the policing of drug use in prison settings and the wider society, in particular around the phenomenon of ‘New/Novel Psychoactive Substances’. Written with Tim Dean, his Hatred of Sex (Nebraska/Provocations, 2022) sought to challenge the de-sexualisation of queer studies and to question the cumulative collateral effects of trauma-focused thinking. He is currently working on a history of French thought of the last four decades.
Dr Elena Vasiliou
University of Warwick
Dr. Elena Vasiliou is a postdoctoral researcher and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Warwick, conducting qualitative research about self-harm in prisons through a queer theory lens. Her research interests include queer theory, decolonial theory, psychoanalysis and prison studies.

Who Should Attend?

This seminar is ideal for scholars, students, activists, and anyone interested in philosophy, sociology, political theory, gender studies, and post-colonial thought. Whether you’re familiar with Foucault or newly exploring his work, this event will provide fresh perspectives and foster deep conversations.

This seminar is part of a global network commemorating the 40th anniversary of Michel Foucault’s legacy. As one of over 50 venues across five continents, we are proud to contribute to this World Congress in celebration of Foucault’s enduring influence on philosophy, political theory, and the humanities.

For more information about the global event, please visit foucault40.infoLink opens in a new window.

Join us as we honor Foucault’s transformative ideas and connect with scholars from around the world in this unique, international commemoration.