Foucault News

The Archaeology of Foucault update 9: further work on linguistics, Roussel and the 1970 visits to Buffalo and Japan

Clare O'Farrell

7 September 2021

Thismanuscriptis slowly coming together. I’ve continued working on the linguistics and literary analysis texts inFolie, langage, littérature.For space reasons, I’ve had to keep the discussion of these down, though in many respects they reinforce or supplement points made in the other, fuller texts. I also wrote a long discussion of the “What is an Author?” lecture, with some discussion of the changes between the 1969 Paris and 1970 Buffalo version, and a little on the Paris discussion (on the textual issues seehere). The last part of this chapter is a discussion of the translation of the translation Foucault made of Leo Spitzer, with some discussion ofthe question about its dating, which continues to bother me. This chapter is now in pretty good shape.

I have developed the Coda a bit more, with somediscussion of the other Buffalo lectures on Flaubert and Balzac…

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Eli B. Lichtenstein, Foucault’s Analytics of Sovereignty (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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6 September 2021

Eli B. Lichtenstein (2021) Foucault’s Analytics of Sovereignty, Critical Horizons, 22:3, 287-305
DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2021.1953750

Abstract
The classical theory of sovereignty describes sovereignty as absolute and undivided yet no early modern state could claim such features. Historical record instead suggests that sovereignty was always divided and contested. In this article I argue that Foucault offers a competing account of sovereignty that underlines such features and is thus more historically apt. While commentators typically assume that Foucault’s understanding of sovereignty is borrowed from the classical theory, I demonstrate instead that he offers a sui generis interpretation, which results from the application of his general strategic conception of power to sovereignty itself. In construing sovereignty through a “matrix” of civil war, Foucault thus deprives it of the absoluteness traditionally attributed to it. Instead, he views sovereignty as constituted by conflictual and mobile power relations, a precarious political technology that deploys violence to restore its authority. I also motivate Foucault’s contention that popular sovereignty remains fundamentally continuous with the absolutist sovereignty it succeeds, insofar as it masks and thereby perpetuates unequal power relations in conditions of social conflict. According to Foucault, sovereignty is not a fact of power but a contestory claim, a discourse whose mutability helps to explain its persistence today

Byung-Chul Han, The Palliative Society. Pain Today (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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6 September 2021

Byung-Chul Han, The Palliative Society. Pain Today Byung-Chul Han, Translated by Daniel Steuer, Polity Press, 2021

Our societies today are characterized by a universal algophobia: a generalized fear of pain. We strive to avoid all painful conditions – even the pain of love is treated as suspect. This algophobia extends into society: less and less space is given to conflicts and controversies that might prompt painful discussions. It takes hold of politics too: politics becomes a palliative politics that is incapable of implementing radical reforms that might be painful, so all we get is more of the same.

Faced with the coronavirus pandemic, the palliative society is transformed into a society of survival. The virus enters the palliative zone of well-being and turns it into a quarantine zone in which life is increasingly focused on survival.

And the more life becomes survival, the greater the fear of death: the pandemic makes death, which we had carefully repressed and set aside, visible again. Everywhere, the prolongation of life at any cost is the preeminent value, and we are prepared to sacrifice everything that makes life worth living for the sake of survival.This trenchant analysis of our contemporary societies by one of the most original cultural critics of our time will appeal to a wide readership.

Charles E. Snyder, Foucault and the Historiography of Early Hellenistic Philosophy (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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5 September 2021

Charles E. Snyder (2021) Foucault and the Historiography of Early Hellenistic Philosophy, Critical Horizons

DOI: 10.1080/14409917.2021.1953749

ABSTRACT
In his 1981–82 lectures The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Michel Foucault claims that a significant portion of the modern historiography of ancient philosophy tends to discredit the ethical framework of epimeleia heautou (“care of the self”). The thematic analysis of knowledge in the historiography of ancient philosophy overshadows the theme of care of the self. Taking Foucault’s claim as a point of departure, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, the paper provides a genealogy of the early Hellenistic Academy, from Polemo to Arcesilaus. Second, the paper demonstrates that for Arcesilaus, the alleged pioneer of what modern historiography has designated the Academy’s epistemological scepticism, philosophy is not restricted to a continual search for knowledge at a theoretically rarefied level of challenging arguments or discursive statements. This paper situates Arcesilaus’ opposition to early Stoic epistemology within the framework of Academic epimeleia heautou, and defends the thesis that under Arcesilaus the Hellenistic Academy undergoes a shift in the practice of care of the self.

KEYWORDS: Foucault care of the self knowledge Hellenistic philosophy the Academy Socrates

Sechser: Heterotopic Nightclub in Vienna, Austria by Söhne & Partner Architects (2020)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

4 September 2021

Sechser: Heterotopic Nightclub in Vienna, Austria by Söhne & Partner Architects, Amazing Architecture, 2020

Architect’s Statement:

The design concept of the new bar and nightclub is Mannerist. Mannerism has always stood for a time of change in the historical context and is represented by keywords such as adornment, uncommonness, opulence, artificiality, and abstruseness. To keep up with the current trend of Mannerism, the location was developed with clashing styles as well as opulence, by using fine fabrics and wallpapers from House of Hackney London.

image © Severin Wurnig

[…]

Heterotopia (from gr. hetero (different) and topos (place) is a term defined by Michel Foucault in the early years (1967) of his Philosophy, which he used for places and their intrinsic systematic meaning, which the current norms have not at all or not completely been implementing or which function according to their own rules. Foucault assumes that there are spaces that are reflecting the social relations in a special way, by representing, negating and inverting them.

“In the Stubborn, Bright Sun of Polish Liberty”: Foucault in Warsaw with Remigiusz Ryziński and Sean Bye

Clare O'Farrell

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3 September 2021

“In the Stubborn, Bright Sun of Polish Liberty”: Foucault in Warsaw with Remigiusz Ryziński and Sean Bye, Outsider Theory, August 2021

Podcast discussion

About this Episode
“Foucault in Warsaw,” just out in English translation from Open Letter Books, is a fascinating investigation of the time Michel Foucault spent as a cultural attaché in Warsaw in the late 1950s. The book is at once an intellectual biography of the philosopher during the pivotal year when he wrote much of his first major work, “History of Madness,” an archival detective story set amidst the records of the Polish secret police, and an oral history of the underground gay community of Communist Poland. Author Remigiusz Ryziński and translator Sean Bye join me for a discussion of the book, its various contexts, and the significance of Foucault’s Polish sojourn for the development of his thought.

Buy “Foucault in Warsaw”: https://www.openletterbooks.org/products/foucault-in-warsaw

Read an excerpt: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/june-2018-queer-issue-ix-foucault-in-warsaw-remigiusz-ryziski-sean-bye

Mary McGill, The Visibility Trap, Sexism, Surveillance & Social Media (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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2 September 2021

Mary McGill, The Visibility Trap, Sexism, Surveillance & Social Media, New Island. 2021

A feminist guide to navigating self-representation on social media

Social media is a new type of public space that has revolutionised the way women express themselves, placing the power of representation in female hands like no technology before. But this increased visibility looks both ways, with the gazed upon also gazing back through platforms designed for judgement and surveillance.

A man-made tool, social media is now deeply entwined with women’s lives in an always-on culture where new and intrusive forms of comparison, shaming and watchfulness are completely normalised and women’s bodies, minds and emotions are picked apart. While many are acutely aware of this ‘visibility trap’, taking ownership of it remains a minefield.

In The Visibility Trap, Mary McGill blends feminism, media studies and lived experiences to explore the contradictions and dangers of online visibility for women, asking how we can build better, safer digital spaces for all. From current research to real-life testimonies, via the Kardashian Industrial Complex (KIC) to image-based sexual abuse — ‘revenge porn’ — and its belated criminalisation, she offers urgent and welcome insights into using social media more consciously, powerfully and positively. This is a must-read for anyone who loves or hates social media; for the guardians of future social media users and for anyone else who is still half-on, half-off this most twenty-first century of obsessions.

DR MARY MCGILL is a digital culture researcher and journalist. A former broadcaster, she is a regular media contributor in Ireland and the UK. Her work has appeared in a range of print, digital and broadcast titles in Ireland, the UK and the US including Broadly, BBC, British Vogue, VICE, Refinery29, The Pool, Sunday Business Post, Irish Independent, Irish Times, TV3 and RTÉ. From 2015 to 2020 she was a Hardiman Scholar at the National University of Ireland, Galway, where her doctoral study explored gender, surveillance and selfie-practices. Her 2016 TEDX Talk, ‘Young women, narcissism and the selfie phenomenon’, has been viewed almost 300,000 times.

Mahbub Rashid, Physical Space and Spatiality in Muslim Societies: Notes on the Social Production of Cities (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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31 August 2021

Mahbub Rashid, Physical Space and Spatiality in Muslim Societies: Notes on the Social Production of Cities, University of Michigan Press, 2021

Mahbub Rashid embarks on a fascinating journey through urban space in all of its physical and social aspects, using the theories of Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, and others to explore how consumer capitalism, colonialism, and power disparity consciously shape cities. Using two Muslim cities as case studies, Algiers (Ottoman/French) and Zanzibar (Ottoman/British), Rashid shows how Western perceptions can only view Muslim cities through the lens of colonization—a lens that distorts both physical and social space. Is it possible, he asks, to find a useable urban past in a timeline broken by colonization? He concludes that political economy may be less relevant in premodern cities, that local variation is central to the understanding of power, that cities engage more actively in social reproduction than in production, that the manipulation of space is the exercise of power, that all urban space is a conscious construct and is therefore not inevitable, and that consumer capitalism is taking over everyday life. Ultimately, we reconstruct a present from a fragmented past through local struggles against the homogenizing power of abstract space.

Pat Norman, Power, Knowledge and Palpatine (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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29 August 2021

Pat Norman, Power, Knowledge and Palpatine. In Barnes, Naomi, Bedford, Alison (Eds.), Unlocking Social Theory with Popular Culture, Remixing Theoretical Influencers, Springer, 2021

Abstract

In this chapter, I look at the way Star Wars can help us to understand Michel Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge and governmentality. Foucault argued that power and knowledge interact and produce each other, and this relationship is instrumental in techniques of governing people (or subjects). The Jedi in the Star Wars galaxy provide a case study in how the strategies and tactics of power are deployed to shape institutions of government and to apply these to the formation of the self. Star Wars is a huge pop cultural phenomenon, spanning decades. The prequel trilogy captures the long decline and fall of the Old Republic—a manipulation by the evil Palpatine who engineered both sides of this conflict from the shadows. In this sense, it is a case study in the exercise of power over knowledge. Foucault’s ideas about power/knowledge and governmentality are useful in a wide range of fields: from education to political science, economics to sociology. Just as the Force and the logic of the Jedi shape and produce identity, the social and governing structures of our world do the same. This essay will explore how Foucault’s idea of power can be observed in the galaxy of Star Wars and how those lessons might be applied to our own, much closer, contemporary world.

Keywords
Foucault Performativity Archaeology of knowledge Genealogy of knowledge Governmentality Discourse

Katherine Firth, 5 Ways Hogwarts Helps Us Understand Foucault’s ‘Docile Bodies’ (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

29 August 2021

Katherine Firth, 5 Ways Hogwarts Helps Us Understand Foucault’s ‘Docile Bodies’. In Barnes, Naomi, Bedford, Alison (Eds.), Unlocking Social Theory with Popular Culture, Remixing Theoretical Influencers, Springer, 2021

Abstract
Hogwarts, the school in the Harry Potter novel series, controls and shapes the experiences and adventures of the protagonists in ways that are best understood through the work of Michel Foucault. Michel Foucault (1926–1984) is a French post-modern philosopher most notable for his theories of power and social structures. Foucault is one of the most influential thinkers in the humanities, and thousands of academic books and articles use theoretical tools based on his work. The Harry Potter novels (1997–2007) by J.K. Rowling are the best-selling book series in history and have become the centre of a pop culture network including blockbuster films (2001–2011, 2016–ongoing), a digital platform Pottermore, video games, spin-off books, a play, amusement parks and fan works. Foucault’s ‘Docile Bodies’, from perhaps his best known book Discipline and Punish (1975), is often taught at foundation level in sociology, cultural studies, historical studies, literary studies and education.

This essay will explain how Foucault’s understanding of the traditional school is parallel to Rowling’s vision of Hogwarts. Foucault’s theories show how school rules and norms train students to be members of modern society through classroom discipline, school sport, timetables, being watched, and being publicly punished. These are also central aspects of Hogwarts’ organisation, and they are what makes it easy for Hogwarts to be transformed into other sites of disciplinary control and observation across the series: a prison (book 3), a sporting arena (book 4), a totalitarian state (book 5), and a battlefield (book 7). Foucault’s writing is famously challenging for undergraduate students, for example, the ideas about school governmentality in ‘Docile Bodies’ are what Foucault would later call ‘contact between technologies of domination of others and those of the self’ (1988). However, Foucault’s ideas become much clearer when explored through concrete examples that are likely to be familiar even to people who have never read the books: in Hogwarts’ official institutional structures like Quidditch and House Points, as well as apparently subversive magical items like the Time Turner, Marauder’s Map and the Invisibility Cloak. These five exemplars will be the structuring principle for the essay-listicle.

Keywords
Foucault Hogwarts Docile bodies Discipline Subversion Resistance Enclosure Surveillance Functional sites Machine