Between 1978 and 1983 Stiegler was incarcerated for armed robbery, first at the Prison Saint-Michel in Toulouse, and then at the Centre de détention in Muret. It was during this period that he became interested in philosophy, studying it by correspondence with Gérard Granel at the Université de Toulouse-Le-Mirail. His transformation in prison is recounted in his book, Passer à l?acte (2003, forthcoming in English translation under the title Acting Out).
On January 1, 2006 he commenced as Director of the Department of Cultural Development at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. He is also Director of the Institut de recherche et d'innovation (IRI), which was created at his initiative in April 2006. The IRI is affiliated with the Department of Cultural Development.
Works
Stiegler has been prolifically publishing books, articles, and interviews since 1994, and in particular in the last several years. His works include several ongoing series of books:
La technique et le temps (3 vols.). This series outlines the heart of Stiegler's philosophical project, and in particular his theses that the role of technics has been repressed throughout the history of philosophy, and that technics, as organised inorganic matter, and as essentially a form of memory, is constitutive of human temporality. The series contains extensive readings of the works of André Leroi-Gourhan, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, and Immanuel Kant. It also contains his explication of the "cinematic constitution of consciousness," as well as his thesis that human beings are essentially "adoptive" creatures.
De la misère symbolique (2 vols.). This series is concerned in particular with the ways in which cultural, symbolic and informational technologies have become a means of industrialising the formation of desire in the service of production, with destructive consequences for psychic and collective individuation. Stiegler outlines his concepts of "general organology" (a way of thinking the co-individuation of human organs, technical organs, and social organisations) and "genealogy of the sensible" (a way of thinking the historicity of human desire and aesthetics). It contains extensive readings of Sigmund Freud and Gilles Deleuze, as well as of the works of Alain Resnais, Bertrand Bonello, Andy Warhol, and Joseph Beuys.
Mécréance et Discrédit (3 vols.). This series is concerned with the way in which the industrial organisation of production and then consumption has had destructive consequences for the modes of life of human beings, in particular with the way in which the loss of savoir-faire and savoir-vivre (that is, the loss of the knowledge of how to do and how to live), has resulted in what Stiegler calls "generalised proletarianisation." In this series Stiegler makes clear his view that, in the light of the present state of the global technical system, it is not a matter of overcoming capitalism but rather of transforming its industrial basis to prevent the loss of spirit from which it increasingly suffers. In the second volume Stiegler introduces the concept of the "Antigone complex," to describe the psychosocial effects of the destruction of authority?that is, the destruction of the superego?on politics and youth. The series contains extensive readings of Paul Valéry, Max Weber, Aristotle, and Herbert Marcuse, as well as analyses of the crisis of May 1968 and the crime of Patricia and Emmanuel Cartier.
Constituer l'Europe (2 vols.). In this series Stiegler is concerned with the effects of the destruction of psychic and collective individuation on Europe. He argues for the necessity of inaugurating a new individuation process at the continental level, itself embedded in an individuation process operating at a global level. At stake, he says, is the creation of a new European "motive" which will enable the reinvention of industrial civilisation.
Politics
Stiegler has founded a political group, Ars Industrialis, the manifesto of which calls for an "industrial politics of spirit." The manifesto is signed by Stiegler and the other co-founders of the group, George Collins, Marc Crépon, Catherine Perret and Caroline Stiegler.
Cinema
Stiegler features prominently in the film The Ister (2004).
Barbara Stiegler
Stiegler's daughter Barbara (born 1971) is also a philosopher. She attended the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-St-Cloud, and in 2003 obtained her doctorate from the University of Paris IV: Paris-Sorbonne. Barbara Stiegler is the author of Nietzsche et la biologie (2001) and Nietzsche et la critique de la chair: Dionysos, Ariane, le Christ (2005). She is not to be confused with the German sociologist of the same name.
(2006) Réenchanter le monde : La valeur esprit contre le populisme industriel (with Marc Crépon, George Collins & Catherine Perret). ISBN 2-08-210585-7
(2007) De la démocratie participative: Fondements et limites (with Marc Crépon). ISBN 2-7555-0033-6
(2001) "Derrida and Technology: Fidelity at the Limits of Deconstruction and the Prosthesis of Faith," in Tom Cohen (ed.), Jacques Derrida and the Humanities (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-5216-2565-3
(2001) "New Industrial Temporal Objects," in Rae Earnshaw, Richard Guedj, Andries van Dam, & John Vince (eds.), Frontiers of Human-Centred Computing, Online Communities and Virtual Environments (London: Springer-Verlag). ISBN 1-85233-238-7
Daniel Ross, "Politics, Terror, and Traumatypical Imagery," in Matthew Sharpe, Murray Noonan & Jason Freddi (eds.), Trauma, History, Philosophy (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007): 230?46.
David Wills, "Thinking Back: Towards Technology, via Dorsality," Parallax 10, 3 (2004): 36?52.
David Wills, "Techneology or the Discourse of Speed," in Marquard Smith & Joanne Morra (eds.), The Prosthetic Impulse: From a Posthuman Present to a Biocultural Future (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press, 2006).
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