Foucault News

Patrick Boucheron, The Archaeologist and the Historian: Dialogue with Giorgio Agamben (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

12 June 2025

Patrick Boucheron, The Archaeologist and the Historian: Dialogue with Giorgio Agamben, Translated by Matthew Collins, Journal of Italian Philosophy, Volume 8 (2025), 117 – 123

Open access

Original text: Boucheron, P. (2017/1–2), ‘L’archéologue et l’historien. Dialogue avec Giorgio Agamben’, Critique, 836–37, pp. 164–71. Available at https://doi.org/10.3917/criti.836.0164 (accessed 13th August 2024). This conversation between Patrick Boucheron and Giorgio Agamben took place in French.

Preface
The œuvres of Giorgio Agamben and Patrick Boucheron have unfolded at quite a distance from one another. What do the Italian philosopher and French historian have in common? Perhaps precisely what seems to separate them: the language [langue] and languages [langues], French and Italian, that they share. Not only this, but also the field of mediaeval and Renaissance Italy, which both prefer to survey, although not exclusively. Of particular note is the importance that they accord to writing and to the diversity of its regimes in the exercise of thought. There is also a conviction shared by both which encapsulates the Foucauldian term ‘archaeology’, according to which it is necessary to interrogate the traditions of history if one wishes to forge concepts to parse the present. Archaeology, for Agamben and Boucheron, is inseparable from political concerns […]

Paolo A. Bolaños, Figurations of French Critical Theory (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

10 June 2025

Paolo A. Bolaños, Figurations of French Critical Theory, Kritike Volume 16 Number Four (February 2025) 128-136

DOI:10.25138/18.4.a6

Abstract:
In this brief article, I merely present a schematic presentation of the “figurations” of French critical theory. I rehearse the historical and institutional circumstances of French academia that produced progressive thinkers, such as, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, inter alia. I, then, highlight the privileged position of philosophy in French society and how such privilege nurtured the culture of social and political critique and praxis in France. The influence of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche on French intellectuals is given relative attention. Moreover, I identify Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche as the link between French critical theory and the Frankfurt School. Towards the end, I argue that French critical theorists share with their Frankfurt counterparts the normative assumptions of critical theory laid out by Max Horkheimer in the 1930s: the anthropological, the practical, and the emancipative.

Keywords:
Critical theory, Frankfurt School, French philosophy, theory and praxis

D’Amato, K. ChatGPT: towards AI subjectivity (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

7 June 2025

D’Amato, K. ChatGPT: towards AI subjectivity. AI & Society 40, 1627–1641 (2025).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01898-z

Abstract
Motivated by the question of responsible AI and value alignment, I seek to offer a uniquely Foucauldian reconstruction of the problem as the emergence of an ethical subject in a disciplinary setting. This reconstruction contrasts with the strictly human-oriented programme typical to current scholarship that often views technology in instrumental terms. With this in mind, I problematise the concept of a technological subjectivity through an exploration of various aspects of ChatGPT in light of Foucault’s work, arguing that current systems lack the reflexivity and self-formative characteristics inherent in the notion of the subject. By drawing upon a recent dialogue between Foucault and phenomenology, I suggest four techno-philosophical desiderata that would address the gaps in this search for a technological subjectivity: embodied self-care, embodied intentionality, imagination and reflexivity. Thus I propose that advanced AI be reconceptualised as a subject capable of “technical” self-crafting and reflexive self-conduct, opening new pathways to grasp the intertwinement of the human and the artificial. This reconceptualisation holds the potential to render future AI technology more transparent and responsible in the circulation of knowledge, care and power.

Jones, H., Arnould, E. Resisting Financial Consumer Responsibilization Through Community Counter-Conduct. (2025

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

4 June 2025

Jones, H., Arnould, E. Resisting Financial Consumer Responsibilization Through Community Counter-Conduct. Journal of Business Ethics 198, 387–406 (2025).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05752-6

Abstract
This paper investigates Street Fight Radio’s consumer community’s resistance to neoliberal financial consumer responsibilization. Extant scholarship critiques consumer responsibilization on ethical grounds for placing too much responsibility on consumers at the expense of institutional actors. It also describes some forms of aversion to parts of the responsibilization process among individuals and short-lived consumer collectives. However, it falls short of analyzing community-driven resistance to financial consumer responsibilization writ large, or consumers’ efforts to responsibilize other stakeholders.

Our netnographic and ethnographic study of Street Fight Radio (SFR), a populist grassroots political comedy radio show and podcast with a strong anti-neoliberal consumer community, addresses these previous theoretical limitations. Drawing from Foucault’s counter-conduct concept, we show how SFR’s consumer community bolsters and sustains community-level resistance to financial consumer responsibilization. It encourages consumers to push for collective protections from markets and responsibilize other actors to address systemic, structural precarity. Our analysis makes novel contributions by theorizing the role of community in sustaining resistance to consumer responsibilization and by demonstrating the role of precarious consumers’ performative staging of supposedly excessive, irresponsible consumption in reorienting consumer ethics.

Pierre Nora (1931-2025)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

4 June 2025

Pierre Nora, académicien et historien de l’âme française, est mort
Par Jacques de Saint Victor, Le Figaro, 4 juin 2025

L’historien, auteur des « Lieux de mémoire », vient de disparaître à l’âge de 93 ans. Il fut à la fois un grand éditeur et un intellectuel soucieux de comprendre la France et son évolution, marquée par le triomphe du « mémoriel », qu’il déplorait.

Il était une des plus grandes figures de la vie intellectuelle françaises de ces cinquante dernières années. L’historien et académicien français Pierre Nora, qui vient de décéder ce lundi 2 juin 2025 à l’âge de 93 ans, était surtout connu pour être le maître d’œuvre des Lieux de mémoire. Cette très vaste entreprise éditoriale, commencée au début des années 1980 et portant sur l’esprit de la France, avait contribué à réveiller les débats sur la question mémorielle, son rôle face à l’histoire, ce qui n’empêchait nullement Pierre Nora d’avoir été un historien de grand talent et un intellectuel très influent, éditeur des sciences humaines chez Gallimard.

[…]

L’historien polémiquera aussi avec d’autres « monstres sacrés », comme Pierre Bourdieu et certains tenants de la French Theory, même s’il était l’ami de Michel Foucault, dont il fera un portrait ironique et touchant, le qualifiant d’« esprit brillant, acrobatique et paradoxal (…). Il prétendait faire la philosophie de la vérité et son travail aboutissait à ne pas dire le vrai. Il est celui qui a anticipé le régime de post-vérité. »

Voir aussi – Paywall
L’historien Pierre Nora est mort
Par Antoine Flandrin, Le Monde, 3 juin 2025

English version
Pierre Nora, historian who shaped intellectual life in France, dies at 93

Mort de l’historien Pierre Nora, agitateur majeur des sciences humaines
Par Arnaud Gonzague. Le Nouvel Obs, 2 juin 2025

Variyan, G., McKnight, L., & Charles, C. The subterranean masculinities of elite private boys’ schools (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 June 2025

Variyan, G., McKnight, L., & Charles, C. (2025). The subterranean masculinities of elite private boys’ schools. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 57(2), 194–211.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2024.2447534

ABSTRACT
The #metoo movement has led to countless revelations of sexual misconduct across the globe. Schools have not been immune from such allegations and elite private boys’ schools in particular have featured prominently. In this paper, we explore the recollections of alumni from elite private schools in Australia and analyse the ways in which they were socialised by everyday schooling practices and forms of schoolboy homosociality. This paper approaches these socialities through Foucault’s notion of heterotopias and advances understandings of how profane schoolboy cultures have persisted despite societal changes in the gender order. We contend that elite private boys’ school practices energise modes of peer-relating that are more dangerous than they appear on the surface, because profane incidents can be hidden by myth-making that accompanies the taboo, but also by the ability of subterranean practice to make those admitted to these social niches as well as bystanders complicit in its construction.

KEYWORDS:
Metoo elite schools masculinity heterotopia Foucault

CFP: Reassessing Power: Foucault’s Legacy in Historical and Contemporary Research (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

31 May 2025

Call for Papers
Reassessing Power: Foucault’s Legacy in Historical and Contemporary Research
This panel is a part of
5th Congress of Young Science
Gdansk, Poland, July 17-19, 2025

Moderator: Alessandro di Ludovico, PhD, University of Rome La Sapienza
Scientific supervisor: Alessandro di Ludovico, PhD, University of Rome La Sapienza; Museo di Scultura Antica Giovanni Barracco

Over the past two decades, Michel Foucault’s work has continued to inspire and challenge scholars across a wide spectrum of disciplines. His analyzes of *raison d’État*, governmentality, and biopolitics remain particularly relevant for scholars of modern history, political theory, and cultural studies. Far from being confined to one academic field, Foucault’s conceptual tools offer a flexible and dynamic framework for interrogating the evolution of state power, the organization of knowledge, and the mechanisms of social control.

Michel Foucault has proven to be an invaluable hermeneutical toolkit for recent socio-political developments. The Covid pandemic and biopolitics, the persistence of neoliberalism and its effects on life. The most recent research done on Foucault as an instigator of economic theology (Stimilli 2015) or recent works on the linkage between Foucault and the Reformation (Lindholm and Di Carlo 2024), Foucault and Tacitus (Di Carlo 2024, Ferraro 2024) and Foucault and the US Supreme Court (Di Carlo 2024b) prove the importance and the significance of Foucault.

This panel invites contributions that engage with Foucault’s theoretical legacy, whether by applying his concepts to new historical contexts, reflecting on his methodological approach, or reassessing his ideas in light of contemporary geopolitical transformations. We are especially interested in papers that explore how Foucault’s reflections on state power and the art of government can inform current debates on global governance, authoritarianism, and political resistance.

In addition, the panel seeks to highlight the impact of Foucault’s thought on subjects as diverse as linguistics, law, and film studies. We welcome interdisciplinary proposals that either extend Foucault’s methodologies to new domains or critically engage with his intellectual legacy to shape future academic research.

Scholars working in history, philosophy, political science, sociology, linguistics, and related fields are encouraged to submit proposals. The panel aims to foster a rich dialogue on the contemporary significance of Foucault’s work and its ongoing potential for scholarly advancement.

Papers may be submitted from April 1 (after the list of panels is made available) until June 18 2025 or until all available places are filled.

The Young Science Congress is a cyclical international and multidisciplinary scientific conference held at the University of Gdańsk. In 2024, Gdańsk University of Technology and the Medical University of Gdańsk joined the organization of the 4th Young Science Congress.

As part of the project, in dozens of panels, young scientists can present the results of their research, discuss their theses, establish contacts and develop scientifically. The topics of presentations within the conference are not limited – presentations from the exact sciences, experimental sciences, humanities, social sciences and others are planned.

Ryan, M. We’re only human after all: a critique of human-centred AI (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

29 May 2025

Ryan, M. We’re only human after all: a critique of human-centred AI. AI & Society 40, 1303–1319 (2025).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-01976-2

Abstract
The use of a ‘human-centred’ artificial intelligence approach (HCAI) has substantially increased over the past few years in academic texts (1600 +); institutions (27 Universities have HCAI labs, such as Stanford, Sydney, Berkeley, and Chicago); in tech companies (e.g., Microsoft, IBM, and Google); in politics (e.g., G7, G20, UN, EU, and EC); and major institutional bodies (e.g., World Bank, World Economic Forum, UNESCO, and OECD). Intuitively, it sounds very appealing: placing human concerns at the centre of AI development and use. However, this paper will use insights from the works of Michel Foucault (mostly The Order of Things) to argue that the HCAI approach is deeply problematic in its assumptions. In particular, this paper will criticise four main assumptions commonly found within HCAI: human–AI hybridisation is desirable and unproblematic; humans are not currently at the centre of the AI universe; we should use humans as a way to guide AI development; AI is the next step in a continuous path of human progress; and increasing human control over AI will reduce harmful bias. This paper will contribute to the field of philosophy of technology by using Foucault’s analysis to examine assumptions found in HCAI [it provides a Foucauldian conceptual analysis of a current approach (human-centredness) that aims to influence the design and development of a transformative technology (AI)], it will contribute to AI ethics debates by offering a critique of human-centredness in AI (by choosing Foucault, it provides a bridge between older ideas with contemporary issues), and it will also contribute to Foucault studies (by using his work to engage in contemporary debates, such as AI).

William Max Nelson, Enlightenment Biopolitics. A History of Race, Eugenics, and the Making of Citizens (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

26 May 2025

William Max Nelson, Enlightenment Biopolitics. A History of Race, Eugenics, and the Making of Citizens, University of Chicago Press, 2024

A wide-ranging history tracing the birth of biopolitics in Enlightenment thought and its aftermath.

In Enlightenment Biopolitics, historian William Max Nelson pursues the ambitious task of tracing the context in which biopolitical thought emerged and circulated. He locates that context in the Enlightenment when emancipatory ideals sat alongside the horrors of colonialism, slavery, and race-based discrimination. In fact, these did not just coexist, Nelson argues; they were actually mutually constitutive of Enlightenment ideals.

In this book, Nelson focuses on Enlightenment-era visions of eugenics (including proposals to establish programs of selective breeding), forms of penal slavery, and spurious biological arguments about the supposed inferiority of particular groups. The Enlightenment, he shows, was rife with efforts to shape, harness, and “organize” the minds and especially the bodies of subjects and citizens. In his reading of the birth of biopolitics and its transformations, Nelson examines the shocking conceptual and practical connections between inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality, rights and race, and the supposed “improvement of the human species” and practices of dehumanization.

Birtles, M. World-class education for the few: Analysing Japan’s designated national university corporation system policy discourse (2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

23 May 2025

Birtles, M. (2024). World-class education for the few: Analysing Japan’s designated national university corporation system policy discourse. Policy Futures in Education, 23(3), 582-603.

https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103241287276 (Original work published 2025)

Abstract
This study explores the production, dissemination, and reception of the discourse of educational excellence and internationalisation in Japan’s Designated National University Corporation System. The study frames the policy initiative within the longstanding goals of the Japanese government and demonstrates how the work of Michel Foucault helps uncover the policy’s inherent power dynamics and ideological conflicts. The investigation operationalises Foucault’s theories with a framework to investigate the policy discourse, illuminating the central concern as global competitiveness and an imposition of rigorous criteria for designation. The analysis uncovers a coercive isomorphism, with universities replicating the government’s discourse. Furthermore, the focus on global competitiveness and rankings in the policy comes at the expense of facilitating other forms of internationalisation. More comprehensive reforms are recommended to foster authentic global engagement and inclusivity across a broader base of higher education institutions, rather than focussing on an increasingly thinner strata and the pursuit of global prestige.