Season 2 Episode 2: Edward McGushin

Have you ever wondered why—and when—dreams stopped being treated as an important source of knowledge in Western societies?

In this episode, host Sharon Sliwinski speaks with Edward McGushin, Professor of Philosophy at Stonehill College, about how dreaming became devalued during the Age of Reason. McGushin discusses the influence of René Descartes’s philosophy as well as the French historian, Michel Foucault, who revived the importance of dream life in his own late work. Foucault returned to the ancient idea of dreaming as a privileged ethical disclosure that holds a special relation to truth.

For more see McGushin’s published papers:

  • Edward McGushin, “The Role of Descartes Dream in the Meditations and the Historical Ontology of Ourselves” Foucault Studies, Volume 25 (2018): 84-102. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i25.5575

  • Edward McGushin, “Dream and the aesthetics of existence: Revisiting ‘Foucault’s ethical imagination’” Philosophy and Social Criticism, Volume 47 Issue 8 (2021): 987-1000. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453721104261

    Season 2 of Guardians of Sleep is written and hosted by Sharon Sliwinski and edited by Erin MacIndoe Sproule, Mikayla Gallo, and Victoria Li, with original music by Andrew Braun.

    Generous support was provided by the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Sharon Sliwinski