Deceptive Authoritarianisms: Between Artificial and Discredited Personhoods

Lecture-presentation and panel discussion with Michel Feher and inhabitants, introduced and moderated by Rachel O'Reilly. Premier of How Does Video Become Evidence, screening by inhabitants

Sunday, March 12, 14:15-16:00

MICHEL FEHER

Trumped Assumptions

Feher considers that the neoliberal era (1979–2016) has proved deceptive all along: while purported to have turned everyone into a profit-seeking entrepreneur, the character it has actually fashioned thinks and behaves like a credit-seeking asset manager. What kind of deceptions are we to expect now that the revamping of isolationist authoritarianism trumps the globalization of neoliberal 'best practices'?

Michel Feher is a philosopher who has taught at the École Nationale Supérieure, Paris, and at the University of California, Berkeley, and was recently a Visiting Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the publisher and a founding editor of Zone Books as well as the president and co-founder of Cette France-là, a monitoring group on French immigration policy. He is the author of Powerless by Design: The Age of the International Community (2000), the co-author, with Cette France-là, of Xénophobie d'en haut: le choix d'une droite éhontée and Sans-papiers et préfets: la culture du résultat en portraits (2012) and the co-editor of Nongovernmental Politics (2007), with Gaëlle Krikorian and Yates McKee.

INHABITANTS

inhabitants, is an online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting. They produce and stream short-form videos intended for online distribution, with each episode focusing on a different topic. inhabitants has collaborated with institutions such as Haus der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin; the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin; the Berardo Collection Museum, Lisbon.