Summer school of the doctoral school 433 “Concepts et Langages” from the Sorbonne Université

To give substance to this remarkable body of scientific knowledge, the board of the doctoral school decided to organise a summer school in September 2024, in collaboration with the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles, with the aim of gathering together young researchers from the various disciplines, on a voluntary basis, to attend a two-day programme of lectures and visits, all conducted in the same place.

The chosen topic for this first edition of the event was as follows: “The power issue: concepts and languages”. The idea of power is a fertile topic for cross-disciplinary thinking across all the disciplines embraced by the doctoral school433; it is also conducive to considering particularly pertinent questions at a time when the issue of power relations leads us to take a fresh look at all sorts of theoretical and critical bodies of work.

Given the topic selected, the château de Versailles and its Centre de recherche provided a particularly relevant and inspiring setting.

The organisation envisaged four lines of focus:

• Thinking about places of power
• Questioning power words
• Mediation systems and power relations
• The philosophy of power

Workshops were organised on each of these topics, during which the doctoral students presented their research. Each presentation was followed by a discussion between a research supervisor and another doctoral student from the ED 433. In addition, each day also featured a visit aligned with the theme of the summer school, and a round table attended by various specialists in the question of power, all chosen and invited by the doctoral students themselves.

The two-day programme, which was not open to the public, took place on 19 and 20 September, 2024.