Foucault News

In our Google era, indexers are the unsung heroes of the publishing world (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

5 April 2017

Sam Leith, In our Google era, indexers are the unsung heroes of the publishing world, The Guardian, Thursday 30 March 2017

[…]
Today, the Society of Indexers – the industry body for those professionals (for which, full disclosure, I have the honour to be honorary president) – turns 60 years old. It celebrates its “anniversary, diamond”. “What?” you ask. “Who?” you wonder. No surprise. Indexers are like badgers: they are seldom sighted in the wild, they do their work in the darkness, and when you see one it’s usually because they’ve been run over by an 18-wheeler.

[…]

Also, which is well worth remembering, a good index is often very funny. Those of us who take an interest in such things – and I think there should be more of us – end up hoarding favourites. Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (volume two) contains the cherishable “Elephants, as example of conjugal virtue, 17”. A 1995 book on the computer contains a deliberately circular reference (normally an absolute no-no): “Loop, endless: see ‘endless loop’”; “Endless loop: see ‘loop, endless’.” JG Ballard wrote a short story called “The Index”, which was the index to an imaginary book; the late David Miller used it as the index to his anthology That Glimpse of Truth: The 100 Finest Short Stories Ever Written. And as my colleague in the society, Paula Clarke Bain, who blogs about comedy indexes, recognises, the indexes to Alan Partridge’s memoirs are at least as funny as the body text.

Embodiment and becoming in secondary drama classrooms: the effects of neoliberal education cultures on performances of self and of drama texts (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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4 April 2017

Lambert, K., Wright, P., Currie, J., Pascoe, R.
Embodiment and becoming in secondary drama classrooms: the effects of neoliberal education cultures on performances of self and of drama texts
(2016) Critical Studies in Education, pp. 1-19. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2016.1238402

Abstract
This article explores the effects of neoliberalism and performative educational cultures on secondary school drama classrooms. We consider the ways Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis and Butler’s concept of gender performance enable us to chart the embodied, relational, spatial and affective energies that inhabit the often neoliberal and heterosexually striated space of the drama classroom. These post-humanist analyses are useful methodological tools for mapping the complexities of student becomings in the space context of the secondary school. We also show how Foucault’s governmentality and Ball’s theory of competitive performativity are particularly salient in the context of immanent capitalism that shapes the desires of its subjects. These frameworks, when combined, can be useful in critiquing neoliberal educational assemblages and in indicating emerging deterritorializations and lines of flight in teachers and students. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Author Keywords
Becoming; Butler; Deleuze and Guattari; embodiment; Foucault; neoliberalism; performativity; secondary drama

The Becoming-Statistic: Information Ontologies and Computerized Adaptive Testing in Education (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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3 April 2017

Sellar, S., Thompson, G.
The Becoming-Statistic: Information Ontologies and Computerized Adaptive Testing in Education
(2016) Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies, 16 (5), pp. 491-501.

DOI: 10.1177/1532708616655770

Abstract
This article examines how computerized adaptive testing functions in relation to learning in control societies. We first document the transition from static and discrete forms of statistical work that characterized Foucault’s disciplinary societies into the continuous, predictive analytics that have emerged as the powerful form of statistical work in Deleuze’s control societies. We then explore the function of information science ontologies in adaptive testing and learning applications from the perspective of Deleuze’s philosophical ontology. Working between these two conceptions of ontology enables us to open a critical space in which to posit the need for an alternative ontology of number in education. Focusing on the case of Pearson, the world’s largest edu-business, we consider how the “datafication” of education is presenting opportunities to exploit information assemblages for profit. The primary focus of analysis is Pearson’s Next Generation Assessment agenda, which focuses on the development and implementation of computerized adaptive testing within a broader digital learning environment. Next Generation Assessment is theorized as an information assemblage that functions according to an axiomatic modeling of numerical data enabling the production and communication of information throughout proliferating data infrastructures in education. We argue that the shift from “becoming a statistic” in disciplinary society to “the becoming-statistic” in control society is facilitating the development of digital learning platforms that risk limiting the conditions for learning in the creative sense of this term. © 2016 SAGE Publications.

Author Keywords
CAT; control society; data; Deleuze; information; ontology

Archive: La « French Theory » du spectateur (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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2 April 2017

Quentin Molinier, La « French Theory » du spectateur, Nonfiction.fr, 2015

Compte rendu: Christian Ruby, Spectateur et politique. D’une conception crépusculaire à une conception affirmative de la culture ?, La Lettre Volée, 2014

Résumé : Qu’est-ce qu’être spectateur aujourd’hui ? Et quel est son rôle, son destin politique ? L’auteur montre en quoi les réflexions de Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Marie-José Mondzain et Jacques Rancière peuvent nous aider à dépasser la vision désenchantée et nostalgique qu’un certain nombre d’intellectuels continuent d’entretenir à l’égard d’une figure éminente et centrale de la société du spectacle.

En ces temps de festivités cannoises, il n’est pas inutile de se demander qui sont les vrais « acteurs » de l’industrie cinématographique d’aujourd’hui. A savoir les spectateurs ! Sans eux, sans ces arpenteurs intrépides des salles obscures, ni film ni recette et encore mois d’investissements, de débats, paillettes, critiques, polémiques, journalistes survitaminés, stars endimanchées, tapis-rougisées… Bref, pas de spectacle (dans tous les sens du terme) sans spectateurs. Et tant pis pour le truisme, si du même coup on se donne les moyens d’apprécier les qualités spécifiques du spectateur, ce personnage incontournable de la grande fable culturelle moderne, dont chacun de nous adopte un jour ou l’autre, avec plus ou moins d’assiduité, les traits et les postures.

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Temporary environments (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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1 April 2017

Amelia Melbourne-Hayward, Temporary environments | Architecture Now, 22 August 2016

Illusory Space, oil on canvas, 2012. Image: Jillian Whitmore

Young New Zealand artist Jillian Whitmore explores the intersection between art and architecture with her translucent watercolours. Whitmore will be exhibiting a solo exhibition titled Juncture at the Fine Arts Whanganui Gallery, opening Friday 26 August 2016.

Here, she speaks with Amelia Melbourne-Hayward about her upcoming exhibition, spatial theory and the ideas of temporality within her beautiful works.

[…]
My first encounter with spatial theory was with French anthropologist Marc Auge’s work. He discusses the super-modernity of our urban societies and the ‘non-places’ we inhabit everyday but take little notice of.

I later became influenced by Michel Foucault’s ‘Heterotopia’, architect Lebbeus Woods’ ‘New Spaces’ and urban sociologist Ray Oldenberg’s ‘Third Spaces’. These all had intriguing definitions and ideas of space within the urban environment, and they encouraged me to think deeper about the space we inhabit, how we interact with it and what it might one day become. My art practice fell deeper into a world of spatial theory and I discovered a passion for architecture and futurism.

Multimedia artist feels free as he gets back to basics (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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31 March 2017

Multimedia artist feels free as he gets back to basics
By Lin Qi, China Daily/Asia News Network Thursday, September 1, 2016

Art graduates are now increasingly opting to create installations, videos and other mixed-media pieces. But You Jin is different. The artist, who majored in multimedia art, is focusing on painting — a subject that he has been fascinated with since his teens.

[…]
You, who has exhibited at home and abroad, is now set to present a solo show titled “The View of Heterotopos,” on Friday at the Alternative Space Loop gallery in Seoul, South Korea. The gallery has been promoting avant-garde and experimental art since it was set up in 1999.

The Seoul exhibition, which will run through Oct. 2 and be followed by another show in Hong Kong, celebrates You’s development as a painter over the past three years.

[…]
The exhibition’s title is derived from French philosopher Michel Foucault’s idea of “heterotopias,” through which he says that people require imagination to comprehend a physical space. According to Foucault, different spaces and time zones coexist to form a new world.

At the exhibition, Foucault’s concept has been brought to life through You’s brushwork.

Pierre Macherey, Subjectivité et normativité chez Canguilhem et Foucault (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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29 March 2017

Pierre Macherey, Subjectivité et normativité chez Canguilhem et Foucault

Exposé présenté le 1 juin 2016 dans le cadre d’une journée d’études sur « Michel Foucault et la subjectivation » (Université Paris-Est Créteil)

Lorsque Canguilhem a eu connaissance du premier grand ouvrage de Foucault, Histoire de la folie, sur lequel il a eu à rédiger, en tant que rapporteur de thèse, un rapport, il en a immédiatement souligné le caractère novateur et l’importance, bien au-delà des limites imparties à un travail spécialisé concernant l’histoire de la psychiatrie ; quelques années plus tard, il faisait paraître, dans la collection Galien qu’il dirigeait aux PUF, Naissance de la clinique, l’ouvrage de Foucault qui, sans doute, l’a le plus intéressé parce que son sujet le concernait au plus près, et auquel il s’est souvent référé dans ses propres travaux, sur laquelle s’achève Le normal et le pathologique, Canguilhem signale que « en des pages admirables, émouvantes, de la Naissance de la clinique, Michel Foucault a montré comment Bichat a fait « pivoter le regard médical sur lui-même » pour demander à la mort compte de la vie » (Le normal et le pathologique, Paris, PUF/Quadrige, 1988, p. 215). Cette conversion du regard, qu’il appelle aussi « éversion », est celle que Canguilhem a lui-même essayé de pratiquer. Les deux livres de Foucault, Histoire de la folie (1961) et Naissance de la clinique (1963) sont donnés en référence dans le Supplément à la bibliographie de la nouvelle édition, en 1966, de La connaissance de la vie, ce qui souligne l’importance que Canguilhem leur accordait. ; enfin, lorsque Les Mots et les choses a été mis en circulation, il lui a consacré, sous le titre « Mort de l’homme ou épuisement du Cogito ? », une importante étude parue en 1967 dans Critique, où, prenant sa défense contre ses objecteurs ou ses censeurs, – on était alors en pleine querelle de l’humanisme –, il saluait la « lucidité » de la démarche de Foucault, à propos de laquelle il allait jusqu’à suggérer en conclusion qu’elle pourrait jouer à l’égard des sciences humaines un rôle comparable à celui joué par la Critique de la raison pure pour les sciences de la nature. Par ailleurs, l’un des derniers écrits dont Foucault ait autorisé la publication est la reprise d’une présentation générale de la démarche de Canguilhem, qui avait été rédigée en 1978 au moment où celui-ci était traduit aux États-Unis : ce texte, intitulé dans sa version définitive « La vie : l’expérience et la science », est sans doute l’un des plus importants et des plus pertinents commentaires qui aient été consacrés à la pensée de celui que, dans la conversation, Foucault appelait à l’occasion, sans ironie aucune, et alors qu’il était avare de ce type d’épanchement, « notre vieux maître ». On peut donc dire que Canguilhem et Foucault se sont, au sens fort du terme, reconnus, et même pour une part reconnus l’un dans l’autre à travers le partage d’intérêts et de valeurs réflexives communes : est passée entre eux une relation intellectuelle forte dont on peut supposer qu’elle a joué un rôle non négligeable dans le développement de leurs pensées respectives.

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What Philosophy Can Do (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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28 March 2017

Gary Gutting, What Philosophy Can Do, W.W. Norton, 2016

“A brilliant demonstration of what philosophy can do and how it is essential to human integrity and identity.”—Simon Critchley, coeditor of The Stone Reader

How can we have meaningful debates with political opponents?
How can we distinguish reliable science from over-hyped media reports?
How can we talk sensibly about God?

In What Philosophy Can Do, Gary Gutting takes a philosopher’s scalpel to modern life’s biggest questions and the most powerful forces in our society—politics, science, religion, education, and capitalism—to show how we can improve our discussions of contentious contemporary issues.

Gutting introduces readers to powerful analytic tools in the philosopher’s arsenal that they can use to make new sense of current debates. One such tool is a crucial distinction between inductive and deductive reasoning that explains why both sides on a disputed issue often are sure they have compelling cases for their views. Another is the Principle of Charity, which requires opposing parties to present each other’s arguments in their strongest forms—a tool that would make critiques both more respectful and more effective. Gutting also shows how concepts introduced by philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Michel Foucault and John Rawls can clarify public discussions about morality, the economy, and medicine.

From informed assessments of scientific claims to careful analyses of arguments for and against religious belief, Gutting brings a calm, clear-headed approach to some of the most divisive issues on the table today. He scrutinizes our relationship to work and freedom in capitalism; our modern understanding of happiness and the good life; the value of liberal arts education and the humanities; the role of science and politics in shaping public policy today; and the value of art and popular culture. Perhaps most meaningfully, Gutting shows how we can talk about our own deepest beliefs clearly and directly, while listening to what others have to say to us. What Philosophy Can Do makes a powerful case for philosophy’s importance to public discussions, and shows us that this ancient tradition of inquiry may yet have much to say about our future.

Archive: On Problematization Elaborations on a Theme in “Late Foucault” (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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27 March 2017

On Problematization Elaborations on a Theme in “Late Foucault”
By Clive Barnett, Nonsite.org, Issue 16, June 22, 2015

1. What is a “Foucault”?

For at least four decades now, the ideas of Michel Foucault have resonated across a wide range of academic fields in the English-speaking academy. While this influence is perhaps most clearly felt in the humanities, Foucault has also provided a frame of reference in social science disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, human geography and anthropology, amongst others.1 Foucault’s work is often used to bring a darker image of power relations to social theory, and to recommend that social scientists should develop an historical imagination towards their objects of analysis.2 In these and other uses, the authority of “Foucault” is most often deployed to support models of critical social science, understood as a set of procedures for revealing the operations of power in the routines of everyday and organisational life.

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Quand la CIA s’intéressait de près à Foucault, Derrida et Althusser (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

3 comments

26 March 2017

Quand la CIA s’intéressait de près à Foucault, Derrida et Althusser. Le Monde, 23.03.2017

En 1985, les espions américains se félicitaient de la décomposition de la gauche intellectuelle française. Et passaient complètement à côté de la popularité croissante de ces mêmes philosophes dans leur pays.

Les espions lisent de la philosophie. Ce n’est d’ailleurs pas un secret, pendant la guerre froide, la CIA a mené une « guerre culturelle » en surveillant la vie intellectuelle et en finançant des projets culturels. Un rapport de recherche, déclassifié en 2011, vient apporter un éclairage étonnant sur ces pratiques.

Ce document, livré en 1985 par les agents américains basés à Paris, montre un certain intérêt pour les grandes figures du structuralisme, qu’on appellerait bientôt, outre-Atlantique, la « French theory ». Comme le résume Gabriel Rockhill, philosophe franco-américain qui a étudié le rapport pour la Los Angeles Review of Books, « la CIA a consacré des moyens importants à l’étude, par un groupe d’agents secrets, du corpus théorique considéré par certains comme le plus abscons et le plus alambiqué jamais produit ».

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