Soon, as a listener, we will be participating in an international seminar on the philosopher Michel Foucault. Lately I have been very interested in his work, especially after studying the exhaustion or "saturation" of the prison system, a topic on which the French philosopher left some important contributions. On Monday, if everything goes as planned, I will also be receiving two unpublished books from the philosopher, these more focused on his relationship with literature. In his biography, written by Didier Eribon, the biographer emphasizes not only his reflections on literary discourse, but, above all, his incursions in this field, which aroused our interest. Foucault, in fact, wrote very well. A set of essays on her visits to Brazil, written by Heliana de Barros Conde Rodrigues, is also on our reading list.
Until recently, his biographer, Didier Eribon, released an autobiography, where he reveals his personal difficulties, as a poor young man, from the outskirts of Paris. It is a kind of encounter with himself, something that, throughout his life, he tried to hide. His biographer, Michel Foucault, as we know, was from an upper middle class family. His personal problems were very much related to the difficulties with his sexuality or, more precisely, about how homosexuality was observed in France of those old people. Foucualt assumed several public functions in the area of education, including bureaucratic positions in the French government, not without the inevitable reticence of some, out of pure prejudice. I read Eribon's book looking for a happy Michel Foucault. In his time in Sweden, he even has fun in powerful cars, frequents good resutaurantes, performs great binges, takes homeric drunkenness, but his relationship with the Swedish academic system is not the best. It seems that his best time there was during the summer holidays, when he ran to his Parisian strongholds.
I found this Michel Foucault happy in Tunis, Tunisia, where he was a representative of the French Government. Already legitimized in the academic world, Foucault conducts his classes with a large audience of young people enthusiastic about his ideas. Tunisia was facing a troubled political moment and he aligned himself with the students in their protests against the local government, which even closed some academic centers. He liked the archives, it is true, but it would be unfair to deny this political engagement by the French philosopher. Not only in that country, but in France itself, at crucial moments such as May 1968. In his spare time, alongside his friend Daniel Defert, he lived good times, in possession of his inseparable mat, on that country's paradisiacal beaches, in the sunny mornings, on deserted peninsulas, completely isolated, without those indiscreet or prejudiced presences. Didier Eribon is almost poetic in describing this scenario. As I said before, it was a period of protests, the closure of university centers, but, nevertheless, quite fruitful and happy for French philosopher.
The same cannot be said of his experience in Brazilian Venice, during one of his visits to Brazil, in 1975, when the hosts narrowly left the philosopher isolated, for fear of the reprimands of the Military Dictatorship still in force in the country. A lunch was even proposed, but, one by one, the guests declined the invitation. Foucault would still have given a lecture at UFPE, where he got irritated by the insistence of some teachers to link him to Marxism. It remained for the philosopher to isolate himself in a hotel in the Pina neighborhood, which he would call the golden cage, and, of course, to appreciate women with their big butts exposed, the boys with their short shorts and a pleasant appearance, to follow the work of the street vendors, sellers of coconuts, freshly baked fish, and other human types.
He was helped by Professor Silker Weber, who took him to the Casa da Cultura, which in the past was a prison built in the style of French architecture prisons, of the Panoptic type, of
Watch and Punish fulcrum of their studies. According to the hostess, the philosopher asked several questions about the building, showing great interest. Then, with the help of another professor at UFPE - who said he was just his driver - he went to Igarassu, Ilha de Itamaracá and Alto da Sé. In all these spaces, without showing great enthusiasm. In some moments, even without interacting with their interlocutors. It is not possible that you passed through Alto da Sé without experiencing the traditional tapioca locals. A feather. A few years later, after visiting the United States as a visiting professor, he would die in France.
José Luiz Gomes
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