Foucault News

Michel Foucault and the Social Contract, Chris Watkin with Stuart Elden and Mark Kelly – video of Monash discussion, 13 April 2021

Clare O'Farrell

18 April 2021

Michel Foucault and the Social Contract, Chris Watkin with Stuart Elden and Mark Kelly – video of Monash discussion, 13 April 2021. Youtube video above, also available as a podcast.

My talk was entitled ‘The Yoke of Law and the Lustre of Glory’; Mark’s ‘Social Contract as Norm’.

Internationally renowned Foucault scholars Stuart Elden (Warwick University, UK) and Mark Kelly (Western Sydney University, Australia) discuss Michel Foucault’s relationship to the modern social contract idea. Followed by questions and discussion.
The seminar took place on 13 April 2021, and was hosted by Christopher Watkin (Monash University, Australia), as part of the Australian Research Council funded Future Fellowship project “Rewriting the Social Contract: Technology, Ecology, Extremism”.
To find out more about the Social Contract Research Network, please visit https://www.monash.edu/arts/languages…
Subscribe to the Social Contract Research Podcast at https://anchor.fm/social-contract-res…
Abstracts:
Stuart Elden (Warwick University), ‘The Yoke of Law and the…

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Falch, L.A., A career open to the talents—Nurses’ doing and focus during the history (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

18 April 2021

Falch, L.A.
A career open to the talents—Nurses’ doing and focus during the history
(2021) Nursing Philosophy, 22 (1).

DOI: 10.1111/nup.12336

Abstract
Based on a historical and a contemporary fieldwork at a Danish hospital, this article offers a genealogical and philosophical exploration of the development of nurses’ doing and focus within a hospital setting from the 1800 s to the present day. This exploration finds that nurses’ doing has changed during history, which is reflected in their focus. Thus, nurses’ focus has developed from, what the Danish philosopher Uffe Juul Jensen refers to as a situation-oriented, to a disease-oriented practice, and while new values are established, the conception of care as a core value in nursing seems to have receded. This article also argues that today’s nurses are doing what doctors did in the 19th century. The French philosopher Michel Foucault discusses how things repeat themselves in new ways and new contexts. The nursing profession has become ‘a career open to the talents’ where nurses with the appropriate skills and talents are able to build a career, within which they provide status, position and legitimacy. The conclusion of the article discusses the significance of this development for patients and the nursing profession. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Author Keywords
genealogy; ideas in nursing; nursing practice; nursing profession; philosophy; values in nursing

D. Lemus-Delgado, China and the battle to win the scientific narrative about the origin of COVID-19 (2020)

Clare O'Farrell

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17 April 2021

D. Lemus-Delgado,
China and the battle to win the scientific narrative about the origin of COVID-19
(2020) Journal of Science Communication, 19 (5), pp. 1-16.

DOI: 10.22323/2.19050206

Abstract
The emergence of COVID-19 represented a critical problem for the legitimacy and prestige of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese authorities had to fight not only to contain the spread of the virus but also to create a favorable public opinion about how they managed the crisis. Based on Foucault’s approach to the “Regime of Truth”, this article analyzes the narrative surrounding the origin of the virus and how science was employed to lend it legitimacy. The article concludes by reviewing how the idea of science as a truth knowledge is used to construct a particular viewpoint, one focused on legitimizing the outbreak containment measures taken by the Chinese government. © 2020

Author Keywords
Public perception of science and technology; Representations of science and technology; Science and media

S.A. Chambers, Subject positions and seriality in The Good Wife (2020)

Clare O'Farrell

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16 April 2021

Chambers, S.A.
Subject positions and seriality in the good wife, In
Hudelet, Ariane, and Anne Crémieux, eds. Exploring Seriality on Screen: Audiovisual Narratives in Film and Television. Routledge, 2020., pp. 233-258.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003044772-17

Abstract
This chapter explores the cultural politics of the US network drama The Good Wife (2009-2016). By reading the idea of “the good wife” through Michel Foucault’s understanding of subject positions, the chapter considers the extent to which the initial setup and development of the series make possible a subtle exploration of norms, subjectivity, and agency, ultimately staging a powerful subversion of certain dominant norms of gender and sexuality. Anchoring this analysis is the central role of the unique and intentional seriality of the show, manifest in both the fundamental idea of “the good wife” as subject position and in a variety of explicit techniques used by the showrunners. © 2021 Taylor & Francis.

Makarychev, A., Romashko, T. Precarious Sovereignty in a Post-liberal Europe: The COVID-19 Emergency in Estonia and Finland (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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15 April 2021

Makarychev, A., Romashko, T.
Precarious Sovereignty in a Post-liberal Europe: The COVID-19 Emergency in Estonia and Finland
(2021) Chinese Political Science Review, 6 (1), pp. 63-85.

DOI: 10.1007/s41111-020-00165-y

Abstract
The paper addresses a puzzle resulting from the current global state of alert: the coronavirus pandemic brought us back to the world of the allegedly sovereign nation states with borders and national governments in charge, yet in fact, this retrieved sovereignty looks very vulnerable and precarious. We explain this controversy through a triad of concepts—sovereignty, governmentality, and post-liberalism—that we apply to an analysis of a corona-imposed state of emergency in Estonia and Finland. Based on comparative case study research, we posit that sovereignty is precarious in post-liberalism due to its large dependence on the technologies of responsibilization and agency. From a biopolitical perspective, a major point in the anti-crisis management is to convince people to sacrifice personal liberties for the sake of public safety. These issues of governmentality will be dealt with based on critical discourse analysis and media analysis in Estonia and Finland. © 2020, Fudan University.

Author Keywords
Agamben; Coronavirus; Estonia; Finland; Foucault; Governmentality; Precarious sovereignty; Responsibilization; Smooth governance

Merve Emre, The Repressive Politics of Emotional Intelligence. (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

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14 April 2021

The Repressive Politics of Emotional Intelligence.
By Merve Emre, The New Yorker, April 12, 2021

Daniel Goleman’s pop-psychology blockbuster, now twenty-five years old, turned self-control into a corporate management tool.
[…]
It is a vision of personal freedom achieved, paradoxically, through constant self-regulation. “Emotional Intelligence” imagines a world constituted of little more than a series of civil interactions between employer and employee, husband and wife, friend and neighbor. People are linked by nothing more than, as Foucault summarized, the “instinct, sentiment, and sympathy” that underwrite their mutual success and their shared “repugnance for the misfortune of individuals” who cannot get a grip on their inner lives.
[…]

The Will to Synthesis: Nietzsche, Carnap and the Continental-Analytic Gap (2020)

Clare O'Farrell

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13 April 2021

Moreira, F.G.A.
The Will to Synthesis: Nietzsche, Carnap and the Continental-Analytic Gap
(2020) Nietzsche-Studien, 49 (1), pp. 150-170.

DOI: 10.1515/nietzstu-2020-0007

Abstract
This essay presupposes that Friedrich Nietzsche and Rudolf Carnap champion contrasting reactions to the fact that, throughout history, persons have been engaged in metaphysical disputes. Nietzsche embraces a libertarian reaction that is in agreement with his anti-democratic aristocratic political views, whereas Carnap endorses an egalitarian reaction aligned with his democratic and socialist political views. After characterizing these reactions, the essay argues for two claims. The first claim is that the stated contrasting reactions are to be considered, not only by the few scholars who are interested both in Nietzsche’s and Carnap’s writings, but by a far larger group that includes those who have addressed the continental-analytic gap; those who are concerned with the development of contemporary philosophy; and/or those who are interested in the writings of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, David Lewis and/or Peter van Inwagen. The second claim is that we have to entertain a synthesis of Nietzsche’s libertarian and Carnap’s egalitarian reaction in order to overcome the continental-analytic gap. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2020.

Author Keywords
Carnap; Continental-analytic gap; Metaphysical disputes; Synthesis

Paul Rabinow (1944 – 2021)

Clare O'Farrell

3 comments

12 April 2021

Portrait of Paul M. Rabinow by Saâd A. Tazi, during his Blaise Pascal professorship at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, rue d’Ulm, Paris.

Christopher Ying, UC Berkeley professor emeritus Paul Rabinow dies at age 76, The Daily Californian, April 11, 2021

Paul Rabinow, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of anthropology and world-renowned anthropologist, died April 6 at the age of 76 in his Berkeley home.

Rabinow spent about 41 years at UC Berkeley between 1978 to 2019, serving as the director of anthropology for the Contemporary Research Collaboratory and as the former director of human practices for the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center.
[…]

Rabinow is most well-known for his commentary on the works of French philosopher Michel Foucault, with whom he worked while Foucault was in Berkeley in the early 1980s.

Dennis, M. Technologies of self-cultivation how to improve Stoic self-care apps (2020)

Clare O'Farrell

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12 April 2021

Dennis, M.
Technologies of self-cultivation how to improve Stoic self-care apps
(2020) Human Affairs, 30 (4), pp. 549-558.

DOI: 10.1515/humaff-2020-0048

Abstract
Self-care apps are booming. Early iterations of this technology focused on tracking health and fitness routines, but recently some developers have turned their attention to the cultivation of character, basing their conceptual resources on the Hellenistic tradition (Stoic Meditations™, Stoa™, Stoic Mental Health Tracker™). Those familiar with the final writings of Michel Foucault will notice an intriguing coincidence between the development of these products and his claims that the Hellenistic tradition of self-cultivation has much to offer contemporary life. In this article, I explore Foucault’s cryptic remarks on this topic, and argue that today’s self-care developers can improve future products by paying attention to the Hellenistic exercises of self-cultivation he identifies as especially important.

Author Keywords
app-based technology; Foucault; Hellenistic philosophy; self-care

Nasir, M.A. Virtue after Foucault: On refuge and integration in Western Europe (2020)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

11 April 2021

Nasir, M.A.
Virtue after Foucault: On refuge and integration in Western Europe
(2020) European Journal of Political Theory

DOI: 10.1177/1474885120964794

Abstract
I suggest that virtue ethics can learn from Foucault’s critical observations on biopolitics and governmentality, which identify how a good cannot be disassociated from power and freedom. I chart a way through which virtue ethics internalizes this critical point. I argue that this helps address concerns that both virtue ethics and the critical scholarship inspired by Foucault otherwise ignore. I apply virtue ethics to the contexts of refugee arrival, asylum procedure, and immigrant integration in Western Europe; I then see how Foucault’s critical thought provides a counterpoint to virtue ethics; I finally analyze how incorporating that critique allows virtue ethics to make sense of both the context and the stakes involved. © The Author(s) 2020.

Author Keywords
Asylum; biopolitics; Foucault; integration; MacIntyre; refugee; virtue; virtue ethics