Foucault News

News and resources on French thinker Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Ben Anderson, Affect and biopower: Towards a politics of life, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Volume 37, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 28-43 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00441.x Abstract In this paper I stage an encounter between two concepts that have become popular placeholders for a broad concern with a politics of life: affect and biopower. Through …

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Ojakangas, M. (2012). “Michel Foucault and the enigmatic origins of bio-politics and governmentality”. History of the human sciences , 25 (1), pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695111426654 Abstract Even a superficial look at the classical ideas and practices of government of populations makes it immediately apparent that there is a peculiarity in Foucault’s genealogy of western bio-politics and …

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Audrey Kiéfer et David Risse (eds). La biopolitique outre-atlantique après Foucault, Editions Harmattan, 2012 From the détentions et rétentions carcérales blog Principe de précaution. Bioéthique. Multiplication et diversification des dispositifs de contrôle des corps. Sexualité. Placement sous surveillance électronique. Village d’insertion pour les communautés Roms. Ces dispositifs de pouvoirs se présentent-ils comme rassurants, novateurs, libéralisateurs …

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Terry Flew, ‘Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics and contemporary neo-liberalism debates’, Thesis Eleven, February 2012 vol. 108 no. 1 44-65 https://doi.org/10.1177/07255136114214 Abstract Neo-liberalism has become one of the boom concepts of our time. From its original reference point as a descriptor of the economics of the ‘Chicago School’ or authors such as Friedrich von …

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Holloway, Lewis (2011). “Choosing and rejecting cattle and sheep: changing discourses and practices of (de)selection in pedigree livestock breeding”. Agriculture and human values, 28 (4), pp. 533-47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-010-9298-2 Abstract This paper examines the discourses and practices of pedigree livestock breeding, focusing on beef cattle and sheep in the UK, concentrating on an under-examined aspect of …

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Claire Blencowe, Biopolitical Experience: Foucault, Power and Positive Critique, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Description Biopolitical Experience offers an original and comprehensive interpretation of Michel Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics – situating biopolitics in the context of embodied histories of subjectivity, affective investments and structures of experience. Going beyond lamentation at the horrors of biopolitical domination, the book …

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Kalmbach Phillips, Donna (2011). “Biopower, disciplinary power, and the production of the ‘good Latino/a teacher’”. Discourse, 32 (1), p. 71. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.537074 Abstract This inquiry explores who is the ‘good teacher of color’. Through Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower and disciplinary power, the analysis attempts to problematize the subject-position of ‘teacher of color’ by exploring how …

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Anderson, Ben (2011). “Population and Affective Perception: Biopolitics and Anticipatory Action in US Counterinsurgency Doctrine”. Antipode, 43 (2), p. 205-36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00804.x Abstract This paper analyses the biopolitical logics of current US counterinsurgency doctrine in the context of the multiple forms of biopower that make up the “war on terror”. It argues that counterinsurgency doctrine aims …

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Barder, A. D., & Debrix, F. (2011). Agonal sovereignty: Rethinking war and politics with Schmitt, Arendt and Foucault. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 37(7), 775-793. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453711410030 Abstract The notion of biopolitical sovereignty and the theory of the state of exception are perspectives derived from Carl Schmitt’s thought and Michel Foucault’s writings that have been popularized by …

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“Rethinking the Self: Transnational and Transdisciplinary Bioethical and Biopolitical Concerns” Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, April 10-12, 2012. Keynote speakers include Prof. Beverley Skeggs, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and Dr. Jenny Slatman, Maastricht University, the Netherlands. This international and interdisciplinary symposium addresses how cultural, medical and political understandings of the self …

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