Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis An Interview The following interview with Cornelius Castoriadis took place at the University of Essex, in late Feburary 1990. Castoriadis is a leading figure in the thought and politics of the postwar period in France. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s he was a member of the now almost legendary political organization, Socialisme […]

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak An Interview Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was born in Calcutta. She now teaches English and Culture Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her translation of Derrida’ s Of Grammatology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), with a long and authoritative introduction, remains a controversial event in the recent history of philosophy and cultural theory, […]

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky An Interview RP: In the 19S0s and ’60s, the bridge between your theoretical work and your political work seems to have been the attack on behaviourism, which then dominated not only psychology but the various social sciences as well, which were often used to justify capitalism and imperialism. But now, partly because of […]

Michel Foucault: Prison Talk

PRISON TaLK: an interview with Miehel Foueault Introduction This interview dates from June 1975 when Michel Foucault published Surveiller et Punir (Surveillance and punishment), subtitled: Naissance ‘de la Prison (Birth of the Prison). This book can be seen as forming a trilogy with Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation (1961) and Birth of the Clinic (1963); each […]

Jacques Rancière: Democracy means equality

INTERVIEW Jacques RancièreDemocracy means equalityPassages: Jacques Rancière, for more than twenty years you have been following a somewhat unusual philosophical itinerary. It is obvious that what you are doing has nothing in common with traditional academic work. Most of your books reveal philosophical thought in unexpected contexts or in contexts that have been reformulated in […]

Arthur C. Danto: Art and analysis

INTERVIEW Arthur C. Danto Art and analysis RP: Your philosophical work appears to be made up of two fairly distinct strands: what one might call a mainstream analytical strand and a more unconventional aesthetic strand. The second strand is dissident, first because itʼs about aesthetics – it takes art seriously, philosophically – and second because […]

Kate Soper: An alternative hedonism

Interview kate soper An alternative hedonism tb: iʼve been influenced by your work over many years, and oneof the things that has impressed me is the way that your writings have always seemed timely. Re-reading your work forthis conversation I was struck by the continuities running through it. Youʼre not just responding to intellectual fashions; […]

Paolo Virno: Reading Gilbert Simondon: Transindividuality, technical activity and reification

Interview paolo virno Reading Gilbert Simondon Transindividuality, technical activity and reification Jun fujita hirose At the end of the 1980s, the thought of Gilbert Simondon – a French philosopher (1924–1989) almost entirely ignored until then – was given a new lease of life on the French philosophical scene. The year of his death, 1989, saw […]

Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf: Propaganda architecture

Interview rem koolhaas and reinier de graaf Rem Koolhaas is perhaps the most feted and influential figure in architecture today, as well as one of the most original contemporary theorists of its changing relations to urban and socio-economic forms. Co-founder in 1975 of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), he is also Professor in Practice […]