I had the privilege of chairing a session at the Foucault and Phenomenology Conference in Memphis, Tennessee in March 2025. It was put on by The Southern Journal of Philosophy at the University of Memphis. Here is a link to the program.
Not only was it incredible to discuss Foucault’s relation to phenomenology with scholars from around the world, but it was a privilege to introduce and monitor the session of Philippe Sabot, an internationally recognized scholar in Foucault. In fact, his work encouraged me while I was writing my dissertation that a connection between Merleau-Ponty and Foucault could be established.
In my introduction, I said, “I first heard Philippe Sabot speak with Frederic Gros and Daniele Lorenzini in the basement of the bibliothèque marguerite in Paris in 2017. I was living there at the time working on my dissertation on Merleau-Ponty and Foucault and his work inspired me that I was perhaps on the right track to argue that there is a possible and even fruitful dialogue between Merleau-Ponty and Foucault.”
His title was: “From phenomenology to archaeology: Foucault with Merleau-Ponty.”
I had the opportunity to offer a response to Maria Fedoryka’s “The Intimate Structure of Sex and Its Meaning” at the American Catholic Philosophical Association Conference on November 16, 2024.
My title was “Centrality of Sexuality: A Beginning to Metaphysics.” Here is an excerpt from my talk:
“In a rather provocative statement, Merleau-Ponty argues that our sexuality is a starting place for metaphysics: “Metaphysics — the emergence of a beyond nature — is not localized on the level of knowledge; it begins with the opening to an ‘other,’ it is everywhere and already contained within the distinctive development of sexuality.”[1] Sexual desires, as Merleau-Ponty points out, although rooted in our body, are for more than physical gratification, but for closeness and intimacy with an other (a “union” as Fedoryka calls it). This opening up to something beyond ourselves is the work of metaphysics; it is a drawing us and pulling us to the truth of being which is the source for all meaning of human life. All of metaphysics is always done as bodily creatures; we can never take a break from our bodies to contemplate the questions of existence and yet, as bodily creatures, in doing metaphysics, we are constantly drawn to higher things. Sexual desires illustrate this unlike anything else: they are firmly embedded in our bodily desires and yet include a longing to be caught up in something bigger than ourselves. Merleau-Ponty writes, “There is no explanation of sexuality that reduces it to something other than itself; it already is, so to speak, our entire being.”[2] The centrality of sexuality reveals how humans have an openness to transcendence which permeates all of our being.”
[1]Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A Landes (Routledge, 2012), 171.
[2]Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 174.
I presented at the International Network of Philosophy of Religion conference which took place in Perugia, Italy on June 11, 2024. It was a wonderful conference connecting with old friends and meeting new ones. The location was beautiful overlooking several small cities including Assisi (where St. Francis was from).
Here is a picture from the back of the hotel.
The conference is both in French and English so I wrote my abstract in both. And like last time, I read my paper in English but read the longer quotations in the original French.
Title: Art Speaks the Unspeakable: Suffering of the World in Aesthetic Expression
Abstract. Responding to the discussion on solitude and tragedy (the “extra-phenomenal”), at our last conference, and reflecting on the crisis of our created world, for this conference, this paper looks to the power of art to speak into the silent spaces of deep suffering. Because there are events where no human language — not even the language of phenomenology — can offer us a satisfying response, art has an ethical obligation to speak to us in the midst of personal and global suffering. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s idea that art emerges out of silence, I will first offer further proof for why it is that art must speak of suffering. Next, I will describe how art fulfills this obligation due to its facility with the vocabulary surrounding suffering, for example, death and brokenness, as seen in illustrations from the art of the French existentialists, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Lastly, I will present what art says to us in suffering to demonstrate its indispensability; for the uncompromising message of aesthetic expression reveals to us the fullness of reality, the hard and the good, unlike anything else.
L’art dit l’indicible: souffrance du monde dans l’expression esthétique
Le résumé. Répondant à l’échange sur la solitude et la tragédie (le “Hors-phénomène”), lors de notre dernière conférence, et réfléchissant sur la crise de notre monde créé, pour cette conférence, cet article se penche sur le pouvoir de l’art de parler dans les espaces silencieux de la souffrance profonde. Parce qu’il y a des événements où le langage humaine — même le langage de la phénoménologie — ne peut pas nous offrir une réponse satisfaisante, l’art a une obligation éthique de nous dire quelque chose au milieu de la souffrance personnelle et globale. Faisant appel à l’idée de Maurice Merleau-Ponty selon laquelle l’art émerge du silence, j’offrirai tout d’abord une preuve en plus du fait que l’art doit parler de la souffrance. Ensuite, je décrirai comment l’art remplit cette obligation par sa richesse de vocabulaire du domaine de souffrance, par exemple, la mort et le monde cassé, comme le montrent les illustrations des arts des existentialistes français, Simone de Beauvoir, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre et Albert Camus. Et enfin, je présenterai ce que l’art nous dit dans la souffrance pour démonter sa nécessité ; car le message intransigeant de l’expression esthétique nous révèle la plénitude de la réalité, du dur et du bien, contrairement à toute autre chose.
I recently did an interview about my book! Giorgi Vachnadze has a youtube channel called, The Silence of Savoir, and he asked if he could host me for an interview.
It was really fun talking about the book with him. He had great questions and I think the video gives a good summary of the book! Thank you, Giorgi!
Enjoy the interview!
Interview with Venable on book, Madness in Experience and History
Giorgi Vachnadze has written a review of my book here at Phenomenological Reviews. Check it out!
I am very grateful to him for writing such a detailed and thorough review. It is clear that he carefully read my book. As a result, he is able to offer such an engaging synthesis of its contents. I feel that he captures the spirit of what I am doing. He also notes on the organization and accessibility of the book which I was happy to hear as that is always one of my goals in writing.
At the end of the review, Vachnadze criticizes the book for ultimately not being in the spirit of Foucault because I do posit a kind of unified account of the body. This criticism is not surprising as I know other Foucault scholars may feel similarly. But I believe that in order to say anything, we need to assume some kind of unity of meaning and, as I argue, even Foucault implicitly does this with his implied subject and his overarching unreason.
Nevertheless, I hope this review prompts many people to read my book and continue the conversation. Thank you, Giorgi, for the immense time and effort that you spent reading my book and writing this review.
Through Wonder 