Foucault, Experience, Literature

Timothy O'Leary, BA (UCD); MA (Paris X); PhD (Deakin). I joined the Department of Philosophy at HKU in 2001, after spending several years teaching and studying in Australia. Originally from Ireland, where I did my BA at UCD, I spent some years in Paris doing an MA and researching at the Foucault Archives (now at IMEC in Caen). My book on Foucault was published in 2002 (Foucault and the Art of Ethics, Continuum) and re-published in 2006. My major research interests are in the fields of ethics, politics, and the philosophy of literature and art, with a particular focus on 20th century European philosophy. In recent years I have published in the area of the philosophy of literature, especially in relation to the works of contemporary Irish writers. I am currently working on a book on literature and the transformation of experience. This book will bring together thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Dewey and Aristotle with writers including Swift, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney. I am also currently planning a co-edited volume on Foucault and Philosophy. My other major interest is in the field of film and philosophy, in which I organised a one-day Symposium at HKU in 2005. Another Symposium is being planned for 2007. At HKU, I teach courses on Foucault, contemporary European philosophy, philosophy of art and literature, Plato, Happiness, Modernity, and the history of political philosophy.