Catherine Malabou
Encyclopedia
Catherine Malabou is a French
philosopher
. She is currently professor
in the Philosophy Department at the Université Paris-X Nanterre and Visiting Professor in the Comparative Literature Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo
. She is to move to the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University
in 2011.
(Fontenay
-Saint-Cloud
). Her agrégation
and doctorate were obtained, under the supervision of Jacques Derrida
and Jean-Luc Marion
, from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales
. Her dissertation became the book, L'Avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, Temporalité, Dialectique (1996).
, as well as from medical science, for example, from work on stem cells and from the concept of neuroplasticity
. In 1999, Malabou published Voyager avec Jacques Derrida – La Contre-allée, co-authored with Derrida. Her book, Les nouveaux blessés (2007), concerns the intersection between neuroscience
, psychoanalysis
, and philosophy, thought through the phenomenon of trauma
.
In the last few years, Malabou has tackled an increasing range of themes and topics in her writing. Coinciding with her exploration of neuroscience has been a greater and greater commitment to political philosophy. This is first evident in her book What Should We Do With Our Brain? and continues in Les nouveaux blessés, as well as in her book on feminism (Changer de différence, le féminin et la question philosophique, Galilée, 2009), and in her forthcoming book about the homeless and social emergency (La grande exclusion, Bayard).
Malabou is currently co-authoring a book with Adrian Johnston on affects in Descartes, Spinoza and neuroscience, and is preparing a new book on the political meaning of life in the light of the most recent biological discoveries (mainly epigenetics
). The latter work will discuss Giorgio Agamben's
concept of "bare life" and Michel Foucault's
notion of biopower
, underscoring the lack of scientific biological definitions of these terms, and the political meaning of such a lack.
Interviews
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. She is currently professor
Academic rank in France
The following summarizes basic academic ranks in the French higher education system:-State university system:* PU equivalent to Full Professor)...
in the Philosophy Department at the Université Paris-X Nanterre and Visiting Professor in the Comparative Literature Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
. She is to move to the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University
Kingston University
Kingston University is a public research university located in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, United Kingdom. It was originally founded in 1899 as Kingston Technical Institute, a polytechnic, and became a university in 1992....
in 2011.
Education
Malabou graduated from the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences HumainesÉcole normale supérieure lettres et sciences humaines
The École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, or ENS LSH, was an elite French grande école specialising in the arts, humanities and social sciences...
(Fontenay
Fontenay-aux-Roses
Fontenay-aux-Roses is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.École Normale Supérieure was a girls school located in the area....
-Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud
Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.Like other communes of the Hauts-de-Seine such as Marnes-la-Coquette, Neuilly-sur-Seine or Vaucresson, Saint-Cloud is one of the wealthiest cities in France, ranked 22nd out of the 36500 in...
). Her agrégation
Agrégation
In France, the agrégation is a civil service competitive examination for some positions in the public education system. The laureates are known as agrégés...
and doctorate were obtained, under the supervision of Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
and Jean-Luc Marion
Jean-Luc Marion
Jean-Luc Marion is among the best-known living philosophers in France, former student of Jacques Derrida and one of the leading Catholic thinkers of modern times. Marion's take on the postmodern is informed by his expertise in patristic and mystical theology, phenomenology, and modern philosophy...
, from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
. Her dissertation became the book, L'Avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, Temporalité, Dialectique (1996).
Work
Central to Malabou's philosophy is the concept of "plasticity," which she derives in part from the work of HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
, as well as from medical science, for example, from work on stem cells and from the concept of neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity is a non-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Plasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes involved in...
. In 1999, Malabou published Voyager avec Jacques Derrida – La Contre-allée, co-authored with Derrida. Her book, Les nouveaux blessés (2007), concerns the intersection between neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
, psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, and philosophy, thought through the phenomenon of trauma
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
.
In the last few years, Malabou has tackled an increasing range of themes and topics in her writing. Coinciding with her exploration of neuroscience has been a greater and greater commitment to political philosophy. This is first evident in her book What Should We Do With Our Brain? and continues in Les nouveaux blessés, as well as in her book on feminism (Changer de différence, le féminin et la question philosophique, Galilée, 2009), and in her forthcoming book about the homeless and social emergency (La grande exclusion, Bayard).
Malabou is currently co-authoring a book with Adrian Johnston on affects in Descartes, Spinoza and neuroscience, and is preparing a new book on the political meaning of life in the light of the most recent biological discoveries (mainly epigenetics
Epigenetics
In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence – hence the name epi- -genetics...
). The latter work will discuss Giorgio Agamben's
Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben is an Italian political philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception and homo sacer....
concept of "bare life" and Michel Foucault's
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
notion of biopower
Biopower
Biopower was a term coined by French Social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault it refers to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations." ...
, underscoring the lack of scientific biological definitions of these terms, and the political meaning of such a lack.
Books
- Auto-affection and Emotional Life: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Neurobiology (with Adrian Johnston, in preparation).
- Sois mon corps, with Judith ButlerJudith ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
(Paris: Bayard, 2010).- (English translation) You Be My Body For Me, For, Corporeity, Plasticity in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (London: Blackwell, forthcoming).
- La Grande Exclusion, l'urgence sociale, thérapie et symptômes (Paris: Bayard: 2009).
- Changer de différence, le féminin et la question philosophique, (Paris: Galilée 2009).
- (English translation) Changing Difference, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011, trans. Carolyn Shread).
- La Chambre du milieu, de Hegel aux neurosciences, collected, (Paris: Hermann 2009).
- Ontologie de l'accident: Essai sur la plasticité destructrice (Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer, 2009).
- Les Nouveaux Blessés: de Freud a la neurologie: penser les traumatismes contemporains (Paris: Bayard, 2007).
- (English translation) The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain Damage (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming).
- La Plasticité au soir de l'écriture (Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer, 2004).
- (English translation) Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing: Dialectic, Destruction, Deconstruction (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, trans. Carolyn Shread).
- Que faire de notre cerveau? (Paris: Bayard, 2004).
- (English translation) What Should We Do With Our Brain? (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009, trans. Sebastian Rand).
- Le Change Heidegger, du fantastique en philosophie (Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer, 2004).
- (English translation) The Heidegger Change: On the Fantastic in Philosophy (New York: SUNY Press, forthcoming).
- Plasticité (Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer, 1999).
- Voyager avec Jacques Derrida – La Contre-allée, with Jacques DerridaJacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
(Paris: La Quinzaine littéraire-Louis Vuitton, 1999).- (English translation) Counterpath: Traveling with Jacques Derrida (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, trans. David WillsDavid Wills (writer)David Robert Wills is a noted translator of Jacques Derrida to include The Gift of Death, Right of Inspection, Counterpath, and The Animal That Therefore I Am...
).
- (English translation) Counterpath: Traveling with Jacques Derrida (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, trans. David Wills
- L'Avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, Temporalité, Dialectique (Paris: Vrin, 1996).
- (English translation) The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality, and Dialectic (New York: Routledge, 2004, trans. Lisabeth During).
Articles (selection)
- "Plasticity and Elasticity in Freud's 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle'," Parallax 15:2 (2009): 41–52.
- "A Conversation with Catherine Malabou", Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 9 (2008): 1–13.
- "The End of Writing? Grammatology and Plasticity," The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms 12 (2007): 431–441.
- "An Eye at the Edge of Discourse," Communication Theory 17 (2007): 16–25.
- "Another Possibility," Research in Phenomenology 36 (2006): 115–129.
- "The Form of an 'I'," in John D. CaputoJohn D. CaputoJohn D. Caputo is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University and the founder of weak theology. Much of Caputo's work focuses on hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction and...
& Michael J. Scanlon (eds.), Augustine and Postmodernism: Confessions and Circumfession (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005): 127–137. - "History and the Process of Mourning in Hegel and Freud," Radical Philosophy 106 (2001): 15–20.
- "Plastic Readings of Hegel," Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 41-42 (2000): 132–141.
- "The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality, Dialectic," Hypatia 15 (2000): 196-220.
- "Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves?," in Paul Patton (ed.), Deleuze: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996): 114–138.
Secondary literature
- Ruth Leys, Review of "What Should we Do with Our Brains," nonsite.org 2 (Spring 2011)
- Justin ClemensJustin ClemensJustin Clemens is an Australian philosopher, translator, social critic, and poet. He is primarily known today for his work on Alain Badiou as an editor, translator, and scholar writing, speaking, and lecturing on the impact of Badiou's thought in this contemporary juncture.A former instructor in...
, The Age of Plastic; or, Catherine Malabou on the Hegelian Futures Market, Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 6, No 1, 2010, 153-162. - Frédéric Worms, Ce qui est atteint dans le cerveau (Catherine Malabou, Les nouveaux Blessés), Esprit, Paris, February 2009, 204-208.
- Slavoj ŽižekSlavoj ŽižekSlavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
, Quando una vittima sopravvive alla propria morte (on Catherine Malabou Les nouveaux Blessés), Il Manifesto, Roma, January 2008, 12.- Descartes and the Post-Traumatic Subject, on Catherine Malabou’s Les nouveaux Blessés and Other Autistic Monsters, Qui parle, Berkeley, vol. 17, 2, Spring/Summer 2009, 123-147.
- Jean-Paul Martinon, On Futurity, Malabou, Nancy and Derrida, New York : Palgrave and Macmillan, 2007.
- Elie During, Politiques du cerveau, (on Catherine Malabou Que faire de notre cerveau ?), Art Press, 302, June 2004, 12-20.
- Servanne Jolivet, Heidegger d’un change à l’autre : Catherine Malabou, Didier Franck, François Raffoul, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, Paris : PUF, 4, October/December 2004, 455-468.
- Jean-Philippe Milet, Heidegger en anamorphose , (on Catherine Malabou, Le Change Heidegger. Du fantastique en philosophie), Critique, Paris : Editions de Minuit, 2004, 691, 93-107.
- Karin de Boer, Thinking in the Light of Time. Heidegger's Encounter with Hegel, Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, Hegel Studien, Bochum, 2004, Volume 49/50, 80-94.
- Mark Alizart, Plasticiens, arts plastiques, plasticité, Critique, Paris : Editions de Minuit, 649-650, June-July 2001, 540-550.
- Lisabeth During, Catherine Malabou and the Currency of Hegelianism, Hypatia, Fall 2000, Vol. 15, No. 4, 190-195.
- Önay Sözer, Zukunft aus dem Geist der Plaztizität, Hegel Studien, Bochum, 1997, Volume 70, 28-42.
External links
Interviews
- Philosophy: Pushing the Limits. An interview with Catherine Malabou listen or download Malabou interviewed by JK Fowler on March 30, 2010