Foucault News

Ananta Kumar Giri and Saji Varghese (eds), COVID-19 and the Challenges of Trauma and Transformations. Ethics, Politics and Spirituality and Alternative Planetary Futures (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

10 June 2026

Ananta Kumar Giri and Saji Varghese (eds), COVID-19 and the Challenges of Trauma and Transformations. Ethics, Politics and Spirituality and Alternative Planetary Futures, Anthem Press, 2025

This book unveils the challenges of living beyond Covid-19 navigating trauma, solidarity, and transformative futures.

The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 emerged in the city of Wuhan in December 2019 and has then spread across all over the world. Its spread has created trauma, death and destruction on its trail. It has also brought to fore many other related issues such as endemic poverty, racism, structural inequality, aggression and authoritarianism. Societies and nations have responded to these with lock downs which many a time have been done, as in the case of India, in a haste without taking into consideration the plight of the migrant labourers. In the case of the USA, lock down in places such as New York State began much later. In the USA, there have been varieties of responses to the virus as well as the lockdown and as well as ways to open up economies and societies.

Living with and beyond COVID-19 raises these issues of trauma – trauma of the virus and the accompanying illness and disease as well as traumas such as authoritarianism, racism and poverty. But trauma is not just natural. It is constructed, and constructed trauma has the potential to make us aware of our common suffering, fight against both the natural virus and the social virus, and create responsibility and solidarity. Living with COVID-19 and beyond also raises questions of appropriate ethics, politics and spirituality. It invites us to understand the multiple strands of our present condition and understand the critical ontology and genealogy of our viral present. It also challenges us to cultivate pathways of alternative planetary futures. It is not just enough to speak about post-COVID futures. Post-COVID futures without transformation of our contemporary economic, political and social conditions would not necessarily be better compared to our present situation.

Jade G Roque and Marcos C Alvarez, Breaking the pendulum with Michel Foucault: Modern punishment beyond docile bodies (2026)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

9 June 2026

Jade G Roque and Marcos C Alvarez, Breaking the pendulum with Michel Foucault: Modern punishment beyond docile bodies, Punishment and Society, Published online 4 May 2026
https://doi.org/10.1177/146247452614465

Abstract
Contemporary penal change is often explained as an institutionally mediated outcome of political, cultural, and social transformations that vacillate between affinity for retributive and rehabilitative penal measures. The retributive approach to punishment is typically associated with symbolic gestures and conflict, whereas the rehabilitative approach is linked to austerity and a drive to create docile bodies that are less inclined to resist. Although widespread in the field, this explanatory framework has recently been critiqued as a “pendular perspective,” a perpetual rebounding between poles that ignores the persistent presence of symbolic charge and conflict within modern punishment—traits especially visible both in the penal measures that target marginalized populations globally and in the Global South’s institutional penal landscape.

Drawing on Michel Foucault’s work from the early 1970s, this article conceptualizes punishment as a discursive act and presents it as a means of transcending the so-called pendular perspective on penal change. It argues that modern punishment—including in its rehabilitative forms—remains symbolically charged and capable of fostering conflict because it enacts a comprehensive moral horizon for subjectivation. This horizon includes not only docile bodies, but also oppositional and consensus-challenging positions such as delinquency, insurrection, resistance, and counter-conduct. Despite the presuppositions of the pendular perspective, penal change thus arises from a historically contingent need to alter an arrangement of conflictual subjective positions, the latter having undergone no core changes since the dawn of modernity in Western societies.

Damián Tuset Varela, Artificial Intelligence Law through the Lens of Michel Foucault: Biopower, Surveillance, and the Reconfiguration of Legal Normativity (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

7 June 2026

Damián Tuset Varela (2024). Artificial Intelligence Law through the Lens of Michel Foucault: Biopower, Surveillance, and the Reconfiguration of Legal Normativity. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 12, 189-201.
https://www.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2024.1212012

Abstract
This paper examines the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on legal systems through the theoretical lens of Michel Foucault. It explores how AI, as a contemporary technological apparatus, reinforces structures of surveillance and control, aligning with Foucault’s concepts of biopower and technologies of the self. The study argues that AI poses significant challenges to traditional legal categories of responsibility and morality, necessitating a reevaluation of legal frameworks. By analyzing case studies such as predictive policing in the United States and China’s social credit system, this paper demonstrates how AI functions as a form of biopower, extending state and corporate influence over individuals. The central hypothesis is that AI has the potential to deconstruct traditional notions of legal accountability and moral responsibility, urging a revaluation of the axiological aspects of existing law. The paper concludes by proposing legal adaptations, such as algorithmic impact assessments and enhanced transparency measures, to mitigate the risks of AI-driven control and safeguard individual autonomy.

Keywords
Artificial Intelligence, Michel Foucault, Biopower, Surveillance, Technologies of the Self, Legal Accountability, Privacy, Autonomy, Predictive Policing, Social Credit System

Etienne Balibar, Sur la catastrophe informatique : une fin de l’historicité ? (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

4 June 2026

Etienne Balibar, Sur la catastrophe informatique : une fin de l’historicité ?, Les temps qui restent, 4 March 2024

La catastrophe digitale en cours fait des humains des inforgs, des organismes configurés et traités par l’informatique. Cela reconfigure les relations de pouvoir, de travail, et de production et circulation du symbolique : ce sont des conséquences anthropologiques. Elles nous font courir le risque de la disparition de l’historicité.
[…]

De mon point de vue, la catastrophe informatique n’est que l’une des trois grandes « catastrophes » auxquelles nous avons affaire […]

Les deux autres catastrophes auxquelles je pense sont la catastrophe environnementale, dont relèvent le dérèglement climatique, la pollution du milieu terrestre, océanique et atmosphérique, l’extinction massive des espèces et l’effondrement de la biodiversité, mais aussi, moins unanimement reconnue bien que je ne la croie pas moins désastreuse, la généralisation de la guerre qui efface les frontières entre « état de paix » et « état de guerre » au niveau géopolitique et au niveau local.
[…]

Ruixun Dai, Matthew Krehl Edward Thomas, and Shaun Rawolle, “Revisiting Foucault’s Panopticon: How Does AI Surveillance Transform Educational Norms? (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 June 2026

Ruixun Dai, Matthew Krehl Edward Thomas, and Shaun Rawolle. 2025. “Revisiting Foucault’s Panopticon: How Does AI Surveillance Transform Educational Norms?” British Journal of Sociology of Education 46 (5): 650–68
https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2025.2501118

Abstract
This article applies Foucault’s theories of surveillance, disciplinary power, and normalisation to examine the shifting power dynamics in AI-mediated education. Drawing on qualitative responses from 27 English and Chinese-speaking stakeholders, including students, teachers, administrators and parents with no geographical restrictions, this study investigates how AI surveillance reshapes behaviours and perceptions and identifies emergent norms in education. Thematic analysis revealed four key themes: normalising ubiquitous surveillance and behavioural control, prioritising efficiency over autonomy, reaffirming the importance of human elements in AI-assisted education, and ensuring human-AI collaboration. Machine learning is not neutral but an active agent of algorithmic control, reflecting a post-panoptic power structure. It introduces new forms of disciplinary power, encouraging behaviours aligned with efficiency at the expense of autonomy and privacy. Despite these shifts, the findings underscore the vital role of human engagement, pointing to a future where human agency remains central in regulating and complementing AI in education.

Christophe Bouton, The problem of the transcendental from Kant to Hegel. The young Foucault’s interpretation of the “Phenomenology of Spirit” in his 1949 mémoire (2026)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

31 May 2026

Christophe Bouton, The problem of the transcendental from Kant to Hegel. The young Foucault’s interpretation of the “Phenomenology of Spirit” in his 1949 mémoire. The Southern Journal of Philosophy. First published: 13 March 2026
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.70043

Abstract
In this paper, I explore the young Foucault’s engagement with phenomenology in his master’s thesis, The Constitution of a Historical Transcendental in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. I begin by outlining the context of this early work (Section 1), followed by a brief summary of the thesis and its overall argumentative structure (Section 2). In Section 3, I analyze Foucault’s critique of Kant, which concerns not only Kant’s ahistorical conception of the transcendental (3.1), but also the lack of critical reflection on the conditions of access to transcendental philosophy (3.2). Finally, I trace the emergence of the theme of the empirico–transcendental doublet in the 1949 thesis, and consider to what extent this notion applies to both Kant and Hegel (3.3).

Rubén Alepuz Cintas, Molecular Biopolitics and Biological Citizenship: Towards a New Configuration of Power over Life (2026)

Clare O'Farrell

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28 May 2026

Rubén Alepuz Cintas, Molecular Biopolitics and Biological Citizenship: Towards a New Configuration of Power over Life. (2026). Tábano, 27, 1-19.
https://doi.org/10.46553/tab.2026.5394

Article in Spanish

Abstract
This article analyzes the evolution of the concept of biopolitics from Michel Foucault to Nikolas Rose, with a particular focus on molecular biopolitics and biological citizenship. It examines how contemporary biomedicine transforms power relations by introducing new mechanisms for regulating life, based on indefinite optimization and the management of genetic susceptibility. Drawing on Rose’s work, the role of biosociality and biolegitimacy in shaping a new model of citizenship is explored. It is argued that this form of biological citizenship, far from being passive, involves collective agency, where individuals organize themselves to claim their biomedical rights. Finally, the article reflects on the tensions between negative biopolitics, focused on controlling life, and affirmative biopolitics, which enables new forms of subjectivation and political participation.

Indrajit Mukherjee, Performing the Otherness: Vodou/Voodoo as a Cultural Marker of Subaltern Resistance in Magical Realist Narratives (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

25 May 2026

Indrajit Mukherjee, (2025). Performing the Otherness: Vodou/Voodoo as a Cultural Marker of Subaltern Resistance in Magical Realist Narratives. In: Bacon, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Zombie. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24734-7_113-1

Abstract
The Vodou/Voodoo exercises, often associated with the Aja, Ewe, Kongo, and Wolof people of the pre-colonial West African continent, refer to the cultural marker of the Indigenous space of the Haiti Islands. This religious iconography in the marginalized site of Haiti is one of the most lethal forms of Black resistance against the constricting ideologies of master-slavery dialectics, capitalism/neo-colonialism, imperialism, racial prejudices, and other inhumane methods evoked by hundreds of Blacks in their everyday existence within the White population of First World countries. In other words, the Vodou/Voodoo ritual assembles a paradigm of protest in which exploited Blacks have become empowered to combat the ideological state apparatuses of the oppressive White system, such as rape, murder, lynching, and other forms of brutal atrocities against them. As Indigenous mythology is one of the fundamental principles in the magical realist narratives, the Vodou/Voodoo belief forms part of the zombification of the exoticized image of alterity, the polar opposite of White discourse, Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, and civilized behavior. It signals “the impossible event so that the reader is not obliged to opt for either the natural or the supernatural version, but rather to revise […] the separation of those zones of meaning” (Carpentier, Alejo, Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1995: 76). As an integral aspect of Haitian myth, the Vodou/Voodoo performance of the Black priest forges into a scathing indictment of the White worldview of looking upon Blacks and their Indigenous culture as symbols of otherness in their geo-political land.

First, the proposed chapter will shed light on the historiography of the emergence of the epistemologies of the elusive yet endangered Vodou/Voodoo views of the African enslaved people in the Haitian Creole orthography. It will delve into how magical realist novels center around this African spiritualism and folklore as a tool for postcolonial resistance against the prevailing structures of the autocratic Whites. Literary works to be considered within the corpus of this chapter are Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World (1949), Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo (1972), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) for exploring the ontologies of Vodou/Voodoo doctrine as a language of effective resistance. Taking a cue from Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of “heterotopia,” the present chapter will try to denote how these three texts employ the Vodou/Voodoo ritualistic practice to construct an alternative spatiotemporal site within the hegemony of the imperialist people.

Appel à contributions: Regards sur le « nouveau droit » foucaldien | CFP: Perspectives on the Foucauldian « New Law » (2026-7)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

24 May 2026

Appel à contributions: Regards sur le « nouveau droit » foucaldien – | Call for papers: Perspectives on the Foucauldian « New Law »

PDF of Call for papers

[…] As part of the publication of thematic issues, the open-access legal journal Lex Electronica invites those interested in exploring the theme of the “new Foucauldian law” to propose articles that can be of exegetical nature (on the work of Foucault), analytical (on non-judicial practices) or prospective (on the possible or desirable future of law).

[…] Dans le cadre de la publication de numéros thématiques, la revue juridique en libre- accès Lex Electronica invite les personnes intéressées à explorer le thème du « nouveau droit foucaldien » à lui proposer des articles pouvant être de nature exégétique (sur les travaux de Foucault), analytique (sur des pratiques non- judiciaires) ou prospective (sur le devenir possible ou souhaitable du droit).

Les personnes souhaitant répondre à cet Appel à contributions doivent au préalable faire parvenir à la revue un résumé de l’article projeté (200 mots) au plus tard le 1er septembre 2026, puis l’article complet (7000 – 8000 mots, références incluses) avant le 1er février 2027, à l’adresse suivante : info@crdp.umontreal.ca

Emmanuel Le Doeuff, Les thèses annotées de Michel Foucault sont désormais en ligne sur Numerabilis (2026)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

24 May 2026

Emmanuel Le Doeuff, Les thèses annotées de Michel Foucault sont désormais en ligne sur Numerabilis, Panacée, 7 mai 2026
https://doi.org/10.58079/166xv

Comme nous l’indiquions dans un billet précédent¹, les trois volumes de la thèse principale de Michel Foucault (1926-1984) ainsi que les deux volumes de sa thèse complémentaire sont conservés à la BU Henri-Piéron. Intitulées respectivement Folie et déraison. Histoire de l’expérience de la folie à l’âge classique et Introduction à l’Anthropologie de Kant, ces thèses ont été soutenues le 20 mai 1961 en Sorbonne. Les exemplaires en question sont annotés de la main de l’auteur et présentent des variations notables en comparaison des publications chez les éditeurs Plon en 1961², Gallimard en 1972³ ou encore Vrin en 2008⁴.

[…]

La numérisation en a été réalisée en partenariat avec la société Memorist et ces exemplaires annotés sont désormais disponibles dans Numerabilis, la bibliothèque numérique de l’Université Paris Cité, en cliquant sur les liens suivants :

Folie et déraison. Histoire de l’expérience de la folie à l’âge classique

Introduction à l’Anthropologie de Kant

[… Lire la suite]

Nous espérons que la mise à disposition de ces documents à destination du public des spécialistes comme de toute personne intéressée par l’œuvre de Michel Foucault permettra de mieux comprendre les procédés d’écriture de celui qui reste l’un des plus importants philosophes contemporains.