Foucault News

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

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Foucault and Christianity – a really interesting online resource from Niki Kasumi Clements, as part of the research for her book Foucault the Confessor. As part of my research on Michel Foucault’s engagement with early Christian texts, I have been tracing his citational practices from 1974-1984 through his published works;…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Stuart Elden, The Early Foucault – Polity, June 2021 Three really generous endorsements for the book, from people whose own work I really admire. ‘Elden’s compendious coverage of Foucault’s intellectual career constitutes the contemporary apogee of scholarship on Foucault.’Mark G. E. Kelly, Western Sydney University ‘This is a work of…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
On 7 January 2021 I’ll be part of a panel discussion for the Abolition Democracy 13/13 series, hosted by Bernard E. Harcourt at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought, and co-organised with Daniele Lorenzini of The Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy at Warwick. We will be discussing…

Jean-Michel Landry (2020) Foucault on Christianity: The Impasse of Subjectivation, Political Theology, Published online: 30 Dec 2020 DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2020.1866810 ABSTRACT The last volume of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Confessions of the Flesh, offers a detailed excursion into Early Christianity and its distinct mode of subjectivation. But it also discloses a paradox that was already apparent …

Continue reading

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
This was an exceptionally difficult term – probably the hardest I can remember in twenty-five years of working in universities. It was very hard to make any progress on this manuscript – the fourth and final book in this sequence of studies of Foucault’s career and writings, this time looking…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Stuart Elden, ‘Foucault as Translator of Binswanger and von Weizsäcker‘ – The video abstract for this open access article is now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGpBkZrd0k Foucault’s Introduction to a translation of Ludwig Binswanger’s essay ‘Dream and Existence’ was published in late 1954. The translation was credited to Jacqueline Verdeaux, with Foucault acknowledged…

Originally posted on affecognitive:
What would it be to re-sculpt the projects of human life and social government without “freedom” or “liberty”? The terms are decidedly overdetermined, rising (unsurprisingly) during the configurations of the nation state and in the wake of the French Revolution (see accompanying Ngrams). The assumptions and calls for freedom after the…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
I’ve mentioned before the project to diigitise Foucault’s reading notes which are now archived at the Bibliothèque national de France. Two interesting pieces report on the project. First, a presentation given at a recent conference which gives an indication of how this will look: Marie-Laure Massot, Jean-Philippe Moreux, Vincent Ventresque,…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Azucena G. Blanco, Literature and Politics in the Later Foucault – De Gruyter, November 2020. This appears to be currently open access as an e-book. This study proposes a revised interpretation of Foucault’s views on literature. It has been argued that the philosopher’s interest in literature was limited to the…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Perry Zurn, Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry – University of Minnesota Press, March 2021 Curiosity is political. Who is curious, when, and how reflects the social values and power structures of a given society. In?Curiosity and Power, Perry Zurn explores the political philosophy of curiosity, staking the groundbreaking…