Dear friends and colleagues,
We will begin today’s seminar at the Maison Française at 7pm in silence. We want to mourn for all those who have been struck by acts of warfare violence unleashed during the last week. We think of Paris, we think of Beirut, and we also think back to other attacks this year, in Kenya, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere: so many victims, so many places, on so many occasions, it begins to feel as if the world itself is at war.
After this silence, though, we cannot be silent. We have decided to go on with our work and with our seminar. The best way to demonstrate our solidarity with those who are daily hit by acts of violence, aggression, and war is to keep on thinking and acting critically, questioning the circulation of power and the articulation of violence.
Faced with these unconscionable recent events, Professor Rosanvallon has decided that his place right now is in Paris, and he has decided to return there. We understand completely and support his decision. And we will honor his decision to be active by our own decision to continue on as well.
At our seminar, we will not be trying to connect the reading of Foucault’s Abnormal lectures to the recent events. Foucault’s work, like ours, goes sometimes at a slower pace. Questions and analyses take time, and the emergency should not make us detour the urgent. We cannot allow that excess of speed to hamper the pace of thought. Critical thought needs attention. Neither silence nor forced speech are, by contrast, necessary.
Foucault 13/13 is a space of critical thought, pluralism, and engagement. This is why being silent today would feel like a defeat of all those principles that we hold dear, necessary, unnegotiable.
Veena Das, Bernard E. Harcourt, Emmanuelle Saada, and Jesús R. Velasco