[Editor] Today marks the centenary of Foucault’s birth on the 15th October 1926 in Poitiers, France.
A number of events, celebrations and publications are marking the occasion, providing an opportunity for scholars, writers, artists, activists and others to demonstrate their engagement with Foucault’s enormous and diverse body of work and to draw attention to this vibrant and very productive source of ideas.
I have created a category for centenary events and publications on Foucault News. Don’t hesitate to email me if you would like anything added.
Foucault’s work is fundamentally optimistic, always premised on the assumption that if arrangements are less than ideal in our societies and cultures, we can always do better.
Didier Eribon : On vous dit assez pessimiste. A vous entendre je vous croirais plutôt optimiste?
Michel Foucault : Il y a un optimisme qui consiste à dire: de toute façon, ça ne pouvait pas être mieux. Mon optimisme consisterait plutôt à dire: tant de choses peuvent être changées, fragiles comme elles sont, liées à plus de contingences que de necessités, à plus d’arbitaire que d’évidence, à plus de contigences historiques complexes mais passagères qu’à des constances anthropologiques inévitables.
Michel Foucault, (1994) [1981] ‘Est-il donc important de penser?’ In Dits et Ecrits vol. IV. Paris: Gallimard, p. 182.
Didier Eribon: You are said to be rather pessimistic. Listening to you, though, I get the impression that you are something of an optimist instead.
Michel Foucault: There is an optimism that consists in saying, “In any case, it couldn’t be any better.” My optimism would consist in saying, “So many things can be changed, being as fragile as they are, tied more to contingencies than to necessities, more to what is arbitrary than to what is rationally established, more to complex but transitory historical contigencies than to inevitable anthropological constants…”
Michel Foucault, (2000) [1981] ‘ So is it important to think? ‘. In J. Faubion (ed.). Tr. Robert Hurley and others. Power The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. Volume Three. New York: New Press, p. 458.
