Catherine Malabou
February 1 – March 31, 2016
#Diskurs 12
Catherine Malabou: Symbolicy vs. Biological Life: the End
The lecture took place as part of the series „What is Philosophy?“ on September 8, 2011 at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein.
Catherine Malabou will offer a critique of the notions of biopower and biopolitics in contemporary continental philosophy. Philosophers like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben have strongly criticized, each in his own way, any metaphysical approach to life that promotes phenomenological distinctions between body and flesh, between the empirical, objective body and the spiritually incarnated one. None of them confer an ontological value onto the term “life” that could be severed from life’s empirical determination. A theory of life, a philosophical approach to life can only be a political articulation. It is not a question of defining life — of proposing a concept of life — but of understanding the how and why; to recall Foucault’s famous definition: in modern times, the political subject and biological individual are one and the same. Malabou claims that a new relationship between the biological and the symbolic is concealed behind the term biopolitics or even politics of life, a hinge between them that is both a junction and a division. The persistence of such a hinge is what reintroduces a kind of vitalism into the political approach to life. To what extent can current biological categories thus help us found a new materialism?
The French philosopher Catherine Malabou (b. 1959) teaches at Kingston College, London, and at Université Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris. She was also a visiting professor at, among others, the State University of New York, Buffalo, the New School in New York, and the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In 1999, she published La contre-allée (Voyager avec Jacques Derrida), based on a collaboration with Jacques Derrida. Selected publications: Avant demain. Épigenèse et rationalité (2014), You Be My Body For Me, For, Corporeity, Plasticity in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (2011); Changer de différence, le féminin et la question philosophique (2009).
In English language
The series #Diskurs monthly presents n.b.k. events that were held in the frame of exhibitions at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Lectures, symposia, and artist talks, as well as concerts and performances regularly take place within the series „n.b.k. Diskurs“, inviting visitors to participate actively. Artists whose works are exhibited, guests of our residency program, and speakers develop outreach formats in cooperation with n.b.k., that can make different artistic and curatorial approaches and thematic issues productive. The n.b.k. conceives its discourse program as a conversation between the institution, the public, and members, from which ideas for the ongoing institutional work and its content grows. The complete „n.b.k. Diskurs“ archive can be viewed free of charge during the opening hours at the Video-Forum.
Catherine Malabou: Symbolicy vs. Biological Life: the End
The lecture took place as part of the series „What is Philosophy?“ on September 8, 2011 at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein.
Catherine Malabou will offer a critique of the notions of biopower and biopolitics in contemporary continental philosophy. Philosophers like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben have strongly criticized, each in his own way, any metaphysical approach to life that promotes phenomenological distinctions between body and flesh, between the empirical, objective body and the spiritually incarnated one. None of them confer an ontological value onto the term “life” that could be severed from life’s empirical determination. A theory of life, a philosophical approach to life can only be a political articulation. It is not a question of defining life — of proposing a concept of life — but of understanding the how and why; to recall Foucault’s famous definition: in modern times, the political subject and biological individual are one and the same. Malabou claims that a new relationship between the biological and the symbolic is concealed behind the term biopolitics or even politics of life, a hinge between them that is both a junction and a division. The persistence of such a hinge is what reintroduces a kind of vitalism into the political approach to life. To what extent can current biological categories thus help us found a new materialism?
The French philosopher Catherine Malabou (b. 1959) teaches at Kingston College, London, and at Université Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris. She was also a visiting professor at, among others, the State University of New York, Buffalo, the New School in New York, and the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In 1999, she published La contre-allée (Voyager avec Jacques Derrida), based on a collaboration with Jacques Derrida. Selected publications: Avant demain. Épigenèse et rationalité (2014), You Be My Body For Me, For, Corporeity, Plasticity in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (2011); Changer de différence, le féminin et la question philosophique (2009).
In English language
The series #Diskurs monthly presents n.b.k. events that were held in the frame of exhibitions at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Lectures, symposia, and artist talks, as well as concerts and performances regularly take place within the series „n.b.k. Diskurs“, inviting visitors to participate actively. Artists whose works are exhibited, guests of our residency program, and speakers develop outreach formats in cooperation with n.b.k., that can make different artistic and curatorial approaches and thematic issues productive. The n.b.k. conceives its discourse program as a conversation between the institution, the public, and members, from which ideas for the ongoing institutional work and its content grows. The complete „n.b.k. Diskurs“ archive can be viewed free of charge during the opening hours at the Video-Forum.