In his late lectures at the Collège de France, Foucault underpins the pre-eminence of art as the modern site of parrhesia. He omits, however, the aesthetic question: how does parrhesia work through art? A compelling question, firstly, because “truth-telling” seems to be at odds with art as an imaginative process. Secondly, because parrhesia implies a transformation in the listener, while Foucault’s limited notion of discourse precludes transformation beyond discourse. This essay hypothesizes that parrhesiastic art effects a transformation in the imagination, (...) without dismissing this transformation as unreal. As Foucault’s utterances about the imagination are restricted to his earliest publications, this essay features a combined reading of Foucault’s early and late discussions of art. To further analyze the elusive role of the imagination in the late discussions, the essay employs the Deleuzian notion of “dramatization”, an epistemological method that draws on the imagination to escape representational thought. The essay thus aims to demonstrate that parrhesia mirrors the artwork in its intuitive and dynamic relation to truth. Subsequently, it argues that Foucault and Deleuze, respectively proceeding from a limited and an unlimited mode of thinking, come infinitely close in their thinking of art. (shrink)

Technological innovations such as next generation sequencing and DNA hybridisation enrichment have resulted in multi‐fold increases in both the quantity of ancient DNA sequence data and the time depth for DNA retrieval. To date, over 30 ancient genomes have been sequenced, moving from 0.7× coverage (mammoth) in 2008 to more than 50× coverage (Neanderthal) in 2014. Studies of rapid evolutionary changes, such as the evolution and spread of pathogens and the genetic responses of hosts, or the genetics of domestication and (...) climatic adaptation, are developing swiftly and the importance of palaeogenomics for investigating evolutionary processes during the last million years is likely to increase considerably. However, these new datasets require new methods of data processing and analysis, as well as conceptual changes in interpreting the results. In this review we highlight important areas of future technical and conceptual progress and discuss research topics in the rapidly growing field of palaeogenomics. -/- . (shrink)