Foucault News

Michel Senellart, Oikonomia et regimen. À propos d’une critique de M. Foucault par G. Agamben, Laval théologique et philosophique, Volume 79, Number 3, 2023, p. 355–368

https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1107500ar
https://doi.org/10.7202/1107500ar

Résumé
Cet article propose une réponse à la critique adressée par G. Agamben, dans Le Règne et la Gloire (2008), à la généalogie foucaldienne de la gouvernementalité. En cherchant dans la pensée chrétienne des premiers siècles la matrice d’une conception nouvelle du pouvoir comme gouvernement des hommes — « économie » ou conduite des âmes —, Foucault aurait méconnu la signification proprement théologique, au sein du dispositif trinitaire, du mot oikonomia. Nous voudrions montrer, à partir d’une relecture du 2e Discours (362) de Grégoire de Nazianze (329-390), dont Foucault tire le concept d’une « économie des âmes », que cette idée ne présuppose nullement la référence au schéma trinitaire et renvoie bien davantage au modèle du « patronage » romain, couplé à la figure sacerdotale du bon berger. Cette analyse conduira, en outre, à rappeler le lien de la « direction des âmes » avec le paradigme médical.

Abstract
This article proposes a response to the criticism addressed by G. Agamben, in Le Règne et la Gloire (2008), to the Foucaldian genealogy of governmentality. In seeking in the Christian thought of the first centuries the matrix of a new conception of power as the government of men — “economy” or the guidance of souls —, Foucault would have ignored the properly theological meaning, within the Trinitarian system, of the word oikonomia. We would like to show, from a re-reading of the 2nd Discourse (362) of Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390), from which Foucault derives the concept of an “economy of souls”, that this idea does not presuppose any reference to the Trinitarian scheme and refers much more to the model of Roman “patronage”, coupled with the priestly figure of the good shepherd. This analysis will lead, moreover, to recall the link of the “direction of souls” with the medical paradigm.

With thanks to Colin Gordon for this reference

Prozorov, S. (2023). Foucault and Agamben on Augustine, Paradise and the Politics of Human Nature. Theory, Culture & Society, 41(1), 23-37.

https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764221140811 (Original work published 2024)

Abstract
This article focuses on Foucault’s and Agamben’s readings of Augustine’s account of human nature and original sin. Foucault’s analysis of Augustine’s account of sexual acts in paradise, subordinated to will and devoid of lust, highlights the way it constitutes the model for the married couple, whose sexual acts are only acceptable if diverted by the will away from desire and towards the tasks of procreation. While Agamben rejects Augustine’s doctrine of original sin and reclaims paradise as the original homeland of humanity, his reappropriation of paradise remains conditioned by our turn towards our true nature, from which we have been estranged by sin. Agamben’s politics of reclaiming paradise necessarily involves the demand for obedience to this originary model of human nature. It therefore follows to the letter Augustine’s description of paradisiacal sex, in which the will prevails over desire by applying itself to and curtailing itself.

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

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.