Thomas Lemke (sociologist)

Thomas Lemke (2019)

Thomas Lemke (born September 24, 1963 in Bad Lauterberg in the Harz Mountains ) is Professor of Sociology with a focus on biotechnology, nature and society at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Frankfurt .

Career

Lemke studied political science and sociology at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, the University of Southampton and the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne . In 1996 he received his doctorate from the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main with a thesis on Michel Foucault's "Critique of Political Reason" (with Joachim Hirsch and Alex Demirović ). He then worked as a research assistant at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal and at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, of which he is still a member. In 2006 he completed his habilitation at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal and received the Venia Legendiin sociology. In 2007 he was awarded a Heisenberg scholarship from the German Research Foundation, and a year later he received a Heisenberg professorship with a focus on biotechnology, nature and society in the social sciences department of the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Lemke has held numerous fellowships and visiting professorships at universities abroad: Goldsmiths, University of London (2001), New York University (2003) and Copenhagen Business School (2008).

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In his dissertation, Lemke reconstructed Michel Foucault's lectures from 1978 and 1979 and his concept of governmentality in the context of his work. Above all, he showed the systematic connection between Foucault's work and ancient self-techniques and modern art of government. For Lemke, the exercise of power, understood as governing, always includes both domination technologies and technologies of the self. Lemke provided the first international systematic reconstruction of the previously unpublished lectures. Through numerous publications - mostly in collaboration with Susanne Krasmann and Ulrich Bröckling - on Foucault's concept, Lemke became a prominent representative of the studies of governmentality . Lemke's approach is characterized by the fact that it connects Foucault's governmentality approach with debates of the Marxist state theory of the 1970s (especially Louis Althusser's theory of ideological state apparatus, the regulation theory of Nicos Poulantzas and the theory of the welfare state by Claus Offe ).

Lemke is increasingly devoting himself to questions of biopolitics from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. He has worked intensively on the work on biopolitics and bio-power by Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway , Giorgio Agamben , Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri . In a critical further development of these approaches, he has carried out empirical studies on genetic discrimination, predictive genetic tests, DNA analyzes in immigration procedures and the use of biomarkers in psychiatry. In addition, he is currently researching the role of cryopreservation in the life sciences and its impact on society.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

• Lemke, T. (1996). A Critique of Political Reason - Foucault's Analysis of Modern Governmentality . Hamburg / Berlin: Argument Verlag , 5th edition 2011. ISBN 978-3-88619-251-9 .
• Lemke, T. (2006). The police of genes. Forms and fields of genetic discrimination , Frankfurt am Main / New York: Campus .
• Lemke, T. (2007). Introduction to biopolitics , Hamburg: Junius Verlag .
• Lemke, T. (2007). Governmentality and biopolitics , Wiesbaden: Publishing house for social sciences . 2nd edition 2008.
• Kollek, R. & Lemke, T. (2008). The medical look into the future. Social implications of predictive genetic testing , Frankfurt am Main / New York: Campus .
• Lemke, T. (2011). Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique , Boulder, CO / London: Paradigm Publishers.

Editorships

• Bröckling, U., Krasmann, S. & Lemke, T. (Eds.) (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. (Eds.) (2004). Glossary of the Present , Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​4th edition 2009.
• Bauer, S., Heinemann, T. & Lemke, T. (Eds.): (2017). Science and Technology Studies. Classic positions and current perspectives , Berlin: Suhrkamp.

items

• 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

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Lemke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Employee page at the Goethe University Frankfurt
• Lecture on "Biopolitics: Current Issues and Future Challenges"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Lemke, T. (1991). A Critique of Political Reason - Foucault's Analysis of Modern Governmentality . Hamburg / Berlin: Argument Verlag , 5th edition 2011. ISBN 978-3-88619-251-9 .
2. ↑ Project website Genetic Discrimination in Germany. Retrieved September 19, 2013 . 
3. ↑ IMMIGENE project website. Retrieved September 19, 2013 . 
4. ↑ cryosocieties.eu , accessed September 24, 2019.