Tosquelles and Canguilhem: A Pathbreaking Encounter
From transversal audio by transversal.at
November 14, 2024 · 39 min
About this episode
The episode explores the interactions between Georges Canguilhem and Tosquelles during Canguilhem's time at a psychiatric clinic in 1944, focusing on their psychological views and the implications for mental illness and queerness.
In the summer of 1944, philosopher Georges Canguilhem spent several weeks hiding and caring for wounded patients in the psychiatric clinic of Saint-Alban as a ‘resistance-physician’. During this time, Canguilhem took part in the clinical work carried out at Saint-Alban, among other things by examining and observing the patient ‘Mme. C…’. In return, as it were, Tosquelles, Bonnafé and others read and discussed the medical thesis that Canguilhem had defended at the Université de Strasbourg in 1943, the famous Essay on Some Problems Concerning the Normal and the Pathological. My paper explores the convergences between the psychological views of Canguilhem and Tosquelles. It focuses on questions concerning the status of mental illness (and queerness) and the ‘normativity’, i.e., the autonomy, of organic individuals. Lecture given at the international conference “QUEER TOSQUELLES - Anti-Fascism, Vagabonding Psychiatry, Non-Identitarian Lives” on 22 June 2024 at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (KHM) - https://www.khm.de/queertosquelles/.
People in this episode
Host: transversal.at
Topics covered
- philosophy
- psychiatry
- mental illness
- queerness
- normativity
- historical context
Keywords
- Canguilhem
- Tosquelles
- psychiatry
- mental illness
- queerness
- normativity
- historical psychiatry
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Essay on Some Problems Concerning the Normal and the Pathological
Places: Saint-Alban, Academy of Media Arts in Cologne
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