Call for participants: 7days Training in Estonia: Project covers all costs: #URGENT
Deadline: 1 December 2014
Open to: students interested to learn more about different facets of biopolitics
Open to: students interested to learn more about different facets of biopolitics
Venue: 8-14 February 2015, Kääriku, Estonia
Decription
The University of Tartu and the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, invite graduate and post-graduate students to apply for the 5th International Winter school in Kääriku, on the topic “The State and the Body: Biopower, Biopolitics, and the Political Regime”. This school is part of the international project “Escapes from Modernity” which has been organizing Summer and Winter Schools since 2007. In February 2015, we are going to focus the school session on biopolitical power, as exemplified by regulations for disciplining and constraining human bodies, from anti-gay and anti-abortion laws to food sanctions and Ebola quarantines. Biopolitics is understood along the lines of Michel Foucault as a relatively soft (but rather pervasive) technology of power and governance targeted at such areas as health, sanitation, education, demographic policy, and sexuality. For biopolitics, the human body, including the private life of the individual, is part of political calculations and mechanisms of power.
Throughout the human history, biopolitics was implemented in various eras and in different shapes, from birth control to hygienic policy. Such forms of biopolitics as juvenile justice, laws on smoking, age limitations in the mass media, the cult of healthy body and even noise laws are extensively used by many governments in Western democracies. Yet, as shown by the practices of totalitarian regimes (Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR), in the absence of political pluralism and viable civil society, biopolitics turns into a series of repressive regulations like racial or class hygiene, or the repression of ‘deviant’ sexual practices. In this sense, uses of biopolitics are linked to the nature of the political regime.
Topics to be covered at the school sessions include:
- Theoretical Foundations of Biopolitics
- Historical Uses of Biopower
- Totalitarian Practices of Biopolitical Regulation
- Biopolitical Conservatism and Russia’s ‘Sexual Sovereignty’
- Biopolitics of Migration
- Biopolitics of Sport Mega-Events
- Biopolitics of Global Epidemics
The venue of the School is Kääriku Leisure and Sports Centre of the University of Tartu, situated in a beautiful area in Valga County, about 40 km south of Tartu, near the Otepää winter resort. The participants of the School will be provided with comfortable accommodation, full board, free Internet access and numerous sports and outdoor opportunities, including a gym, indoor basketball and volleyball courts, cross-country skis for rent, and will be able to use 150 km of cross country ski tracks, starting right outside the Centre.
The working language is English. Participation is equal to 4 ECTS credits, which will be confirmed by a certificate awarded to each student upon successful completion of the School.
Eligibility
Senior B.A., M.A. and PhD students interested to learn more about different facets of biopolitics and partake in discussions are asked to apply
Costs
The participants of the programme would be provided with comfortable accommodation, full board, free Internet access and numerous sports and outdoor opportunities.
Application
Submit your CVs and motivation letters (max 2 pages) explaining their interest in the topic and its relevance for the applicant’s future career. The deadline for submission is December 1, 2014.
Applications should be sent to:
- Andrey Makarychev (University of Tartu) – andrey.makarychev[at]ut.ee (for Estonian and international students)
- Igor Tomashov (Higher School of Economics) – escapes[at]hse.ru (for Russian students)
If you have any questions, write to:
andrey.makarychev@ut.ee
andrey.makarychev@ut.ee
