On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Foucault’s death, the Differenças italianas Research Group of the Open University of Lisbon will host a symposium on the relationship between Foucault and Italian Thought. It is undisputed that Foucault had a decisive impact on Italian Thought, but the central role of Italian Thought in the worldwide reception of Foucault since his death has not been sufficiently acknowledged. Books by prominent Italian philosophers such as Homo Sacer, Technologies of Gender, Empire, and Bíos have highlighted certain currents in Foucault’s scholarship and shaped its interpretation worldwide. For example, where would biopolitical Thought, gender theory, or dispositif theory be today without Italian interlocutors?
Our event invites contemporary Italian thinkers to reflect on the role Italian Thought has played not only in the emergence of new Foucauldian scholarship, but also in shaping the global reception of his scholarship. Our participants will be selected from the Italian Thought Network. We ask our participants to go beyond the typical scholarly exegetical accounts of how a particular theorist has interpreted Foucault. Instead, we ask our participants to explore how Italian Theory has produced new global lines of Foucauldian scholarship. What is the impact of contemporary Italian philosophy on the global reception of Foucault?