Government of Self and Others released

I’m just about to go and pick up my copy of Foucault’s 82-3 lectures, The Government of self and others, which has been published in English translation.

While it might seem that there is little in here that we don’t already know (or have read in the original French version published in January 2008) frankly speaking you know very well that there’s always something of interest, or some longer development of an argument only incompletely discussed elsewhere!

This is volume 1 and if the schedule is the same as the French, then we can expect the second volume on this subject (and Foucault’s last lectures) in about a year.

Update on the Middlesex situation

John Protevi provides an update on the Middlesex situation, with some (partial) good news at last.

The campaign to save our philosophy programmes has just won a partial but significant victory: Kingston University in south-west London announced today that it will re-establish our Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston, by employing the four senior staff in Philosophy at Middlesex (Eric Alliez, Peter Hallward, Peter Osborne and Stella Sandford). Our MA and PhD programmes (full-time and part-time) will be re-launched at Kingston this September, and all current post-graduate students will be invited to move along with the staff.

(Quoting from here.)

The Middlesex campaigners explicitly credit the groundswell of support they have received in helping make this possible. There are still many worrying issues this event has raised that remain a problem, not least of course university governance. From an international perspective as well, anyone looking to pursue a career in the UK (whether as a returning citizen such as myself or not) must surely now be given pause due to the financial situation in the country as a whole, and the likely cuts to higher education.