Foucault News

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

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
On 2 December 1970, Michel Foucault delivered his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France. He was 44 years old. My thanks to Marcelo Hoffman for alerting me to this anniversary. Had this not been such a crazy term, it would have been nice to commemorate this event a bit…

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…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Adam Kotsko, Agamben’s Philosophical Trajectory – Edinburgh University Press, September 2020 Focuses on Agamben’s intellectual development Offers the first study of the complete Homo Sacer series Takes into account Agamben’s recently-published memoir Addresses the full range of Agamben’s thought on linguistics, poetics, politics and theology Giorgio Agamben has emerged as…

Originally posted on affecognitive:
It’s now been the better part of a year since I finished this book. Our pandemic world makes it extraordinarily difficult for me to accomplish the mundane academic task of producing summary statements of what I’ve read. I offer this belated set of notes on the third part of Laval, Paltrinieri…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
The view back from the Devil’s Staircase The hairpins on the way up Penrhiw-Wen The valley road to the Devil’s Staircase A lot of the time recently has been spent revising?The Early Foucault, but that is now?done, and in the run-up to term I spent a bit of time on?this…

Originally posted on Progressive Geographies:
Two interesting reviews of my books in Thesis Eleven. Mitchell Dean reviews Foucault’s Last Decade and Ben Golder’s Foucault and the Politics of Rights; and Peter Beilharz reviews Foucault: The Birth of Power. Both reviews require subscription, unfortunately. Dean is generous in his praise, but also points out some things the book does not do. A…