This lecture is the third in a three-part lecture series "The Time Has Come: Autopsy of an Outrage" by Didier Fassin, organised by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and co-sponsored by RECET.

Venue: Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, Sky Lounge at the University of Vienna (12th floor), 1090 Vienna.

“The time is near when only that which remains inexplicable will demand our attention,” wrote the French poet René Char in his 1971 collection Le Nu perdu. Three years into the Israeli military campaign that has resulted in the destruction and occupation of Gaza and the decimation of its population, that time has now come, and what has been deemed inexplicable requires our full attention.

The three IWM Lectures in Human Sciences that Didier Fassin will deliver represent an attempt to account for what happened both on the ground and in the world. They are structured around what Michel Foucault analyzed in The Order of Things as the three “quasi-transcendental components” of the modern episteme, namely language, life, and labor, which will provide their titles to the lectures. “Language” will reflect on how to make war with words. “Life” will address the unequal value of lives. “Labor” will question the conditions that made these events possible.

To do so, Didier Fassin will find some inspiration in the writings of the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, afer whom his fellowship at the IWM is named, in particular his distinction between “superficial history”, corresponding to the facts that can be ascertained, and “deep history”, referring to the realm of interpretation that cannot be ascertained. He will show that both are necessary and connected. The cycle is an endeavor to grasp the signification and significance of what can be regarded as a signature of the time and a moment of truth for the world.

Lecture 3: Labor. Who to Write For After Gaza

Not only does committing violence imply a labor of justification, but so does supporting perpetrators and vindicating their actions. The third lecture will examine in light of history the questions raised by the reversal of moral values and political principles through connivance with practices of dehumanization and elimination.