Thomas Lemke

Thomas Lemke (* 1963 in Bad Lauterberg ) is a German sociologist and Professor of Sociology, with a focus on biotechnology, Nature and Society at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Goethe University Frankfurt.

Career

Lemke studied political science and sociology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, the University of Southampton and at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne. In 1996 he earned his doctorate at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main with a work at Michel Foucault's " Critique of Political Reason" ( with Joachim Hirsch and Alex Demirovic ). He then worked as a research assistant at the University of Wuppertal and staff at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, where he is a member to this day. In 2006 he habilitated at the University of Wuppertal and received the Venia Legendi in sociology. In 2007 he was awarded a Heisenberg Fellowship from the German Research Foundation and a year later he received a Heisenberg professorship with a focus on biotechnology, Nature and Society at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main. Lemke had numerous fellowships and visiting professorships at universities: Goldsmiths, University of London (2001), New York University (2003) and the Copenhagen Business School ( 2008).

Work

In his dissertation Lemke reconstructed on the basis of tape recordings of Michel Foucault lectures from the years 1978 and 1979 the concept of governmentality in the context of his work. He pointed in particular the systematic connection of Foucault's work on ancient techniques and modern self- government art. Exercise of power understood as governance always includes both rule for Lemke technologies as well as technologies of the self. Lemke provided so that the international first systematic reconstruction of the hitherto unpublished lectures. Through numerous publications - often in collaboration with Susanne and Ulrich Krasmann Bröckling - about Foucault's concept Lemke became the decisive representatives of the studies of governmentality. Lemke's approach is distinguished in that he ( Louis Althusser's theory of ideological state apparatuses, the regulation theory of Nicos Poulantzas and the theory of the welfare state by Claus Offe esp ) brings in conjunction with Foucault Gouvernementalitätsansatz debates the Marxist Staatstheoretie 1970s.

Lemke devotes more and more questions of biopolitics from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. He was closely involved with the work on biopolitics and biopower by Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. In a critical development of these approaches he has conducted empirical studies on genetic discrimination, predictive genetic testing, DNA analysis for family reunification in immigration proceedings.

Writings (selection )

Monographs

  • Lemke, T. ( 1991). A critique of political reason - Foucault's analysis of modern governmentality. Hamburg / Berlin: Argument Verlag, 2011 ISBN 978-3886192519 5th edition. .
  • Lemke, T. ( 2006). The police of the genes. Forms and fields of genetic discrimination, Frankfurt / New York: Campus.
  • Lemke, T. ( 2007). Biopolitics imposing, Hamburg: Junius Verlag.
  • Lemke, T. ( 2007). Governmentality and biopolitics, Wiesbaden: Publisher of Social Sciences. 2nd edition, 2008.
  • Kollek, R. & Lemke, T. ( 2008). The medical gaze into the future. Social implications of predictive genetic testing, Frankfurt / New York: Campus.
  • Lemke, T. ( 2011). Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique, Boulder, CO / London: Paradigm Publishers.

Editorial Boards

  • Bröckling, U., Krasmann, S. & Lemke, T. ( Ed.) ( 2000). Governmentality of the present. Studies on the economization of the social, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 5th edition, 2010.
  • Bröckling, U., Krasmann, S. & Lemke, T. ( Ed.) ( 2004). Glossary of presence, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 4th edition, 2009.

Article

  • Lemke, T. ( 2000). Neoliberalism, the state and self-technologies. A critical overview of the governmentality studies. Political Quarterly, 41 ( 1), 31-47. doi: 10.1007/s11615-000-0003-8
  • Lemke, T. ( 2001). "The Birth of Bio -Politics " - Michel Foucault 's Lecture at the Collège de France on Neo - Liberal Governmentality. Economy & Society, 30 ( 2), 190-207. doi: 10.1080/713766674
  • Lemke, T. ( 2007). An indigestible meal? Foucault, governmentality and state theory. Distinction. Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 15, 43-64. doi: 10.1080/1600910X.2007.9672946
  • Lemke, T. ( 2011). Critique and experience in Foucault. Theory, Culture & Society, 28 ( 4), 26-48. doi: 10.1177/0263276411404907
  • Heinemann, T., & Lemke, T. ( 2013). Suspect families: DNA kinship testing in German immigration policy. Sociology, 47 ( 4), 810-827. doi: 10.1177/0038038512454352
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