Chris Henry: Truth and the Politics of Resistance

In our post-truth political climate, it seems as though the concept of ontological truth(s) has been cast aside in favour of a sceptical politics that dabbles in ‘alternative facts’. Can truth be rescued from the abyss? And is the current trend towards poststructuralism responsible for creating the abyss in the first place? If so, does poststructuralism have the resources to overcome this problem? According to Chris Henry, the answer can be found in a new micropolitics that offers a space for resistance out of which new political possibilities can arise.

In this week’s episode of The Provocateur, I debate these issues with Chris, who is an associate lecturer at the University of Kent. We explore what might be wrong with a contemporary politics that is interested in authoritative truth claims about the world, before moving on to discuss the idea of a politics not grounded in the representation of truth claims and the implications for how we should act in the contemporary political landscape.

You can listen to part one of the podcast here: 

Part two is here: 

Further Reading:

On resistance:

Badiou, A. (2005) Metapolitics. London and New York: Verso.

Buchanan, I. (2008) ‘Power Theory and Praxis’, in I. Buchanan and N. Thoburn (eds.) Deleuze and Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Deleuze, G. (2008 [1964]) Proust and Signs. London and New York: Continuum.

Diefenbach, K. et al. (eds.) (2013) Encountering Althusser: Politics and Materialism in Contemporary Radical Thought. London: Bloomsbury.

Foucault, M. and G. Deleuze (1980) Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. M. Foucault and D. F. Bouchard. Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press.

Svirsky, M. (2010) “Defining Activism”, Deleuze Studies 4(supplement), pp. 163-182.

On metaphysics and ontology:

Althusser, L. (1976) Essays in Self-Criticism. London and Paris: NLB. esp. “Reply to John Lewis.”

Althusser, L. and F. Matheron (2003) ‘Three Notes on the Theory of Discourses’, in The Humanist Controversy and Other Writings (1966-67). London and New York: Verso.

Badiou, A. (2011) Being and Event. London: Continuum.

Brassier, R. (2005) ‘Badiou’s Materialist Epistemology of Mathematics’, Angelaki 10(2): 135-150.

Bryant, L. R., et al. (2011). The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism, re.press.

Critchley, S. (2008) Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of commitment, politics of resistance. London and Brooklyn: Verso.

Deleuze, G. (2011 [1994]). Difference and Repetition. London and New York, Continuum.

Hallward, P. (2003). Badiou: A Subject to Truth. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Henry, C. (2016). ‘On Truth and Instrumentalisation’, London Journal of Critical Thought (1), pp. 5-15.

Meillassoux, Q. (2008) After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. London and New York: Continuum.

Alexander Thom: Shakespeare’s Bodies of Law (Special Episode)

As 23rd April is traditionally celebrated as Shakespeare’s birthday, today The Provocateur brings to you a special one-off episode in honour of the Bardiversary. We are joined by Alexander Thom, a PhD student at the Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham), for a fascinating discussion of the role of law in Shakespeare’s work, in particular the notion of banishment. We explore the relationships between law and literature in general before going on to talk about the significance of banishment as a legal and rhetorical device in the early modern period, as well as how the concept operates in Shakespearean texts. Drawing on how 20th-century thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben have taken up the idea, we discuss banishment as a way of delineating distinctions between the human and non-human, those within the political community and those who are excluded from it. We also touch on the continuing relevance of Shakespeare’s work today, particularly in view of the contemporary plight of immigrants and refugees.

You can listen to the podcast here: 

Correction: At the start of the programme it is stated that 2017 marks the 451st anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. As keen-eyed mathematicians will know, it is of course the Bard’s 453rd birthday. Apologies!

Further Reading:

Primary texts (though we mainly discuss the Shakespeare plays):

Christopher Marlowe: Edward II, The Jew of Malta.

William Shakespeare: As You Like It, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II, Romeo & Juliet, Sir Thomas More, The Tempest, Titus Andronicus.

John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi.

Secondary texts:

Agamben, G. (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press.

Elden, S. (2014) ‘Bellies, wounds, infections, animals, territories: The political bodies of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus‘, in Edkins, J. and A. Kear (eds.) International Politics and Performance. London: Routledge.

Foucault, M. (1978) ‘About the Concept of the “Dangerous Individual” in 19th-Century Legal Psychiatry’, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 1, pp. 1-18.

____ (1995) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan. New York: Vintage.

Kingsley-Smith, J. (2003) Shakespeare’s Drama of Exile. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Höfele, A. (2011) Stage, Stake, and Scaffold: Humans and Animals in Shakespeare’s Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Steiner, G. (1975) After Babel. London: Oxford University Press.

Jon Major: The Future of Solar Cells

Climate change is almost never far from the environmental news agenda and the question of how to transition to a low-carbon economy in the face of an impending peak oil crisis is a serious problem for public policy. Solar power has often been touted as an answer, but its image is plagued by common perceptions that it is either expensive or inefficient or even both.

Today on The Provocateur I talk to Dr Jon Major, an EPSRC Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool, whose research aims to solve both these issues at once. Using the unique properties of a particular semiconductor called cadmium telluride, he and his team hope to develop solar cell technologies that are both cost-effective and also extremely energy efficient. Among other things, we discuss the nuts and bolts of how solar cells actually work, developments in solar technology since the 1950s, the incredible uses of solar power in developing countries and what the future may hold for solar power as a real low-carbon breakthrough.

You can listen to the podcast here: 

Brian Earp: The Ethics of High-Tech Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy

While prejudice on the basis of sexual orientation is still widespread throughout the world, in recent decades laws have been enacted in various countries banning so-called conversion therapy: (typically) psychological attempts to change individuals’ sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to exclusively heterosexual. Advances in neuroscience in the not-too-distant future could mean that conversion therapy could be delivered in a ‘high-tech’ manner, for example by administering a drug that could rewire the neurochemical signals in our brains.

This possibility brings with it a raft of ethical issues and today on The Provocateur I talk to Brian Earp, Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University, to broach these issues. We discuss the possible harms of conversion therapy and whether neuroenhancement-based conversion therapy in particular produces any distinctive harms, explore arguments in favour of the practice and touch on some policy implications.

You can listen to part one of the podcast here: 

Part two is here: 

Note: In the broadcast I mention a second episode with Brian (discussing female and male circumcision), but unfortunately this has been postponed to next month due to scheduling issues. Watch this space!

Further Reading:

Cruz, D. B. (1999) ‘Controlling Desires: Sexual Orientation Conversion and the Limits of Knowledge and Law‘, Southern California Law Review 72, pp. 1297-1400.

Earp, B. D., A. Sandberg and J. Savulescu (2014) ‘Brave New Love: The Threat of High-Tech “Conversion” Therapy and the Bio-Oppression of Sexual Minorities‘, AJOB Neuroscience 5(1), pp. 4-12.

Gupta, K. (2012) ‘Protecting Sexual Diversity: Rethinking the Use of Neurotechnological Interventions to Alter Sexuality’, AJOB Neuroscience 3(3), pp. 24-28.

Haldeman, D. C. (2002) ‘Gay Rights, Patient Rights: The Implications of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy‘, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 33(3), pp. 260-264.

Levy, J. T. (2005) ‘Sexual orientation, exit and refuge’, in Eisenberg, A. and J. Spinner-Halev (eds.) Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Rights and Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Okin, S. M. (1999) ‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’ in Cohen, J. et al. (eds.) Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Sandel, M. (2007) The Case Against Perfection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Shidlo, A. et al. (eds.) (2001) Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical and Research Perspectives. New York, London and Oxford: The Haworth Medical Press.

Tozer, E. E. and J. A. Hayes (2004) ‘Why Do Individuals Seek Conversion Therapy? The Role of Religiosity, Internalized Homonegativity, and Identity Development‘, The Counseling Psychologist 32, pp. 716-740.

Benjamin Boudou: Hospitality, Immigration and the Dilemma of Frontiers

Immigration seems to be on the minds of many liberal governments in a post-Brexit and post-Trump world. The European Union is still grappling with the consequences of the Mediterranean refugee crisis; France is riven between adhering to laicité on the one hand and respecting the wishes of Muslim minorities on the other; Australia is facing its own refugee dilemma, particularly in the light of the abuses documented at the Australia-run detention centre in Papua New Guinea; and of course anxieties abound in the United States regarding the status of Mexican immigrants. How liberal democracies should respond to the (perceived) threat of immigration is a question that has vexed moral and political philosophers in recent decades, in response to a planet increasingly united by globalisation and yet also increasingly fractured by the realities of globalisation.

This week on The Provocateur, I talk about immigration with Benjamin Boudou, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity and editor-in-chief of Raisons politiques, the premier political theory journal in France. We explore his current research which aims to reinvigorate the concept of hospitality in political theory, specifically applying it to the contexts of immigration and frontiers. We also discuss briefly the current situations in Britain and France, as well as how to resolve the divide between analytic and continental approaches to political philosophy.

You can listen to the podcast here: 

Further Reading:

Benhabib, S. (2004) The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carens, J. (2013) The Ethics of Immigration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Derrida, J. (2000) Of Hospitality. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Fine, S. and L. Ypi (eds.) (2016) Migration in Political Theory: The Ethics of Movement and Membership. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goodin, R. (2007) ‘Enfranchising all affected interests and its alternatives’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 35, pp. 40-68.

Kukathas, C. (2012) ‘Why open borders?’ Ethical Perspectives 19(4), pp. 649-675.

Miller, D. (2016) Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.