Foucault News

The Intellectual Species: Evolution or Extinction? (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

6 August 2017

Rodden, J.
The Intellectual Species: Evolution or Extinction?
(2017) Society, 54 (4), pp. 352-354.

Abstract
John Rodden summarizes the thrust of his work on modern intellectual life, the theme of which is that the uncertain future of the “intellectual species“ warrants extended attention because it is inextricably tied to the ultimate fate of the critical intellectual itself. He presents himself as an aspirant to membership in the tradition of the literary-political intellectual represented by such writers as George Orwell, Albert Camus, Lionel Trilling, and Irving Howe. Their example confronts him with the question around which his own writings orbit, as the title of his essay poses it: “The Intellectual Species: Evolution or Extinction. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Author Keywords
“egghead” intellectual; “loose-fish” intellectual; Alfred Kazin; Dwight Macdonald; Ellen Willis; Ernst Bloch; George Orwell; George Scialabba; Irving Howe; John Lukacs; Karl Mannheim; Lewis Feuer; Lionel Trilling; Maureen Corrigan; Michel Foucault; Michelle Goldberg; Neal Gabler; public intellectual; Rick Perlstein; Robert Havemann; Scott McLemee

Jyotirmaya Tripathy, Development as biopolitics: food security and the contemporary Indian experience (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

5 August 2017

Jyotirmaya Tripathy, Development as biopolitics: food security and the contemporary Indian experience (2017) Journal of Cultural Economy, 10(6), 498–509.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2017.1354312

Abstract
Development is concerned with the biological security and well-being of people, and so all development theory and practice are biopolitical in a fundamental sense. The paper argues that for development to be made meaningful, it needs to legitimate itself through the production of healthy bodies, which can be realized through food security, immunization drives, and housing schemes among others. A postcolonial democratic state like India makes an effort to protect its people from hunger and draws its legitimacy from the same. Yet at the same time, the supposed development of the nation implies a concurrent elision of the weak and the vulnerable. Drawing upon India’s experiment with food security, public distribution systems, and other similar schemes, the paper advances an idea of development that is not only inherently biopolitical, but also a compromise between the commitment to protect people from hunger and the need for working around international agencies. While doing so, the paper borrows from the theoretical vocabulary of Foucault, Agamben, and others to historicize the modernist idea of protecting citizens as well as the reality of deaths from hunger and development-induced displacement. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Author Keywords
biopolitics; Development; food security; India; state

Metric power (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

4 August 2017

David Beer, Metric Power, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

This book examines the powerful and intensifying role that metrics play in ordering and shaping our everyday lives. Focusing upon the interconnections between measurement, circulation and possibility, the author explores the interwoven relations between power and metrics. He draws upon a wide-range of interdisciplinary resources to place these metrics within their broader historical, political and social contexts. More specifically, he illuminates the various ways that metrics implicate our lives – from our work, to our consumption and our leisure, through to our bodily routines and the financial and organisational structures that surround us. Unravelling the power dynamics that underpin and reside within the so-called big data revolution, he develops the central concept of Metric Power along with a set of conceptual resources for thinking critically about the powerful role played by metrics in the social world today.

Judith Butler: “Foucault, obrando mal, diciendo la verdad” parte 1 (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

3 August 2017

Published on Jun 29, 2017
El viernes 18 de septiembre, Judith Butler dictó su segunda conferencia “Foucault, obrando mal, diciendo la verdad”. En esta ocasión, las palabras de introducción fueron las de Daniel Berisso y Facundo Giuliano, docentes a cargo del seminario “La educación entre la violencia ética y el reconocimiento responsable. Un abordaje ético-político”

The Subject and Power of Bioethics (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

2 August 2017

Hull, Gordon, The Subject and Power of Bioethics (July 14, 2017). Journal of Ethics, Medicine and Public Health (Forthcoming). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3002513

Abstract
The present paper argues that late work of Michel Foucault is helpful in understanding contemporary bioethics. Specifically, Foucault’s writings on biopower and subjectivity are increasingly relevant as we consider the intersection of public policy and clinical ethics in a socio-political context increasingly structured by the demands of neoliberalism. Although Foucault’s earlier work on the clinical gaze has been important to bioethics, that is no longer as important as his later, incomplete research into power and subjectivity.

The paper develops this argument in four steps. In the first, I look at a classic phenomenological approach to clinical bioethics by Richard Zaner, starting from which I develop a Foucauldian perspective. In that section I also offer a basic outline of what I take Foucault’s primary theoretical contributions to be by way of an initial explication of the biopower-subjectification nexus. The following two sections of the paper present exemplary applications of Foucauldian theory to two areas at the intersection of public policy and clinical bioethics. The first is the procedure for testing women for the BRCA1/2 mutations, mutations that impose on carriers a significant risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. A comparison between American and Dutch practices underscores not only the new ways that genetic testing interpret the body, but also the importance of local political and cultural contexts for understanding how the test is presented, administered and managed. The second is a consideration of the intersection of employee wellness programs and wearable technologies. In it, I develop Foucault’s thought that subjects in the Christian West have long been encouraged to understand themselves confessionally, offering to authority figures the “truth” about themselves. I then interpret the compulsory use of wearables as a verification strategy for compliance with wellness programs as exemplary of such confessional strategies. The final section ties the discussion back to the clinical encounter as Zaner formulates it as an inherently moral encounter structured by vulnerabilities that matter for understanding the selfhood of patients. Based on the preceding examples, I make the case that American understandings of selfhood are increasingly separated from any sense of publicness, and that this structuring of selfhood is of increasing importance in framing and adequately understanding bioethics today.

Keywords: Foucault, bioethics, biopower, clinical ethics, Zaner

Archive: “When Life Will No Longer Barter Itself”: In Defense of Foucault on the Iranian Revolution (2009)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 August 2017

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, (2009) “When Life Will No Longer Barter Itself”: In Defense of Foucault on the Iranian Revolution. In Sam Binkley, Jorge Capetillo (eds) A Foucault for the 21st Century, Biopolitics and Discipline in the New Millennium, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing pp.270-290

On Academia.edu

When Michel Foucault’s journalistic accounts of the Iranian Revolution appeared thirty years ago in Italian and French papers, friends and foes alike thought perhaps the author of Madness and Civilization had gone mad. The philosopher of the land of laïceté was enamored with the spirituality of a massive political action. His defense of the revolution––in spite, and, more importantly, because of its Islamic character––turned him into the butt of French ridicule. The intelligentsia interpreted Foucault’s fascination with the Iranian Revolution as being kin to, at worst, Heidegger’s Nazi temptations, and, at best, Marx’s Orientalist stab at India.

Public attention to Foucault’s reflections on Islam and Iran was confined to the French circles during the years of revolution in Iran itself, 1978-1980. Although a number of essays engaged Foucault posthumously in the early 1990s, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 renewed interest in his musings on political Islam. One might reasonably ask what Foucault had to do with these acts of atrocity. But as I shall demonstrate, a host of Left and liberal philosophers, sociologists, historians, and essayists exploited the atrocities of 9/11 and other recent violent encounters of Muslims in Europe as the basis for launching a feverish attack on the proponents of what they dubbed “cultural relativism.” They warned that nihilism and the awakening of the antiquated regimes of power were the inevitable consequence of the erasure of the Enlightenment as the Universal Referent. But it was not until Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson published Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, that Foucault was tried and convicted as the chief perpetrator of malefic cultural relativism. Afary and Anderson raise fundamental questions about Foucault’s critique of modern disciplinary power in order to prove the consistency between his philosophical oeuvre and his revolutionary sympathies for what they call pseudo-fascist Islamism.

Stuart Elden, Remigiusz Ryziński discusses Foucault’s time in Poland (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 August 2017

Progressive Geographies

161514-foucault-w-warszawie-remigiusz-ryzynski-1 Remigiusz Ryziński discusses his book Foucault w Warszawie, an account of the short period Foucault spent in Poland in the late 1950s – between his time in Uppsala and Warsaw. While the interview is in Polish, machine translation seems to give a good gist.

The book sounds fascinating, as it has used previously unaccessed archive sources. Hopefully some publishers are exploring translation rights. Thanks to James Tyner for the link.

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Doctoral Program Conference: #decoding, Session 1, Unsettling (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

31 July 2017

Power inscribes order on space through codes. Bureaucratic codes measure and normalize dynamic ecologies and constitute the substrate of any infrastructural system, organization, and praxis. They striate space and punctuate time to increase efficiency, maximize profit, reduce risk, and maintain order in cultural, social, economic, and political spheres. #decoding gauges the agency of spatial practices in relation to the challenges and capacities prompted by codes and protocols.

Organized by students in the Doctor of Design Studies program, this conference investigates the impact of codes, concerned with mapping of environments, demarcation of legal territories, operational protocols of logistics and risk management, and codes of building and subtraction. By exposing the spatial and socio-cultural implications of micro-politics embedded in the hidden codes and protocols, we speculate about the potential agency of design practices mediating between processes of normalization, and the live, complex, and unpredictable ecologies of human habitation.

Reinvenções de Foucault (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

30 July 2017

Reinvenções de Foucault

Ana Kiffer.(org.)
Antonio Pele.(org.)
Francisco de Guimaraens.(org.)
Mauricio Rocha.(org.)
Rafael Becker.(org.)

Lamparina, 2017
ISBN 978 85 8316 050 2Cód. barras 9788583160502

Em 1973, Michel Foucault apresenta no Collège de France o Curso “A sociedade punitiva”, parte do conjunto de análises que servirão de base ao livro Vigiar e Punir, de 1975. As gravações do curso foram perdidas e apenas uma transcrição e o resumo foram conservados. Publicado em dezembro de 2013, o Curso sugere muitas questões aos leitores de Foucault e solicita a reformulação de algumas convicções correntes sobre sua obra. Variações sobre a análise da prisão, continuidades e rupturas em relação a Vigiar e Punir e esclarecimentos (ou novos enigmas) sobre a complexa relação entre Foucault e Marx são alguns dos assuntos que emergem da leitura do Curso. Em 2015, um evento acadêmico na PUC Rio teve como fio condutor a interpretação de ‘‘A sociedade punitiva’’ no horizonte da obra foucaultiana. Os trabalhos apresentados por pesquisadores argentinos e brasileiros são agora compilados e oferecidos ao público no livro Reinvenções de Foucault.

Pesquisadores participantes: Mauricio Rocha, Edgardo Castro, Ana Kiffer, Peter Pál Pelbart, Joel Birman, Susana Murillo, Francisco de Guimaraens, Angelica de Britto Pereira Pizarro, Cristina López, Antonio Pele, Fabián Ludueña Romandini, Marcelo Raffin, Rachel Nigro, Bernardo Carvalho Oliveira, Leon Farhi Neto, Andrea Moreira Streva, Eduardo Stelmann, Fernanda Ferreira Pradal, Juliana Moreira Streva, Felipe de Andrade e Souza, Clécio Lemos, Julia Naidin, Rafael Cataneo Becker, Alessandra Vannucci, Aline Caldeira Lopes, Larissa Drigo Agostinho.

Sumário

Apresentação
Mauricio Rocha

“Surveiller et punir”: entre dispositivo y veridicción
Edgardo Castro<

“Attica, Attica!”: Foucault e os 39 detentos
Eduardo Stelmann

Ilegalismos: uma categoria sobre o poder punitivo seletivo em diálogo com o marxismo?
Fernanda Ferreira Pradal

Foucault y Marx: aproximaciones a la construcción de un dispositivo de lectura
Susana Murillo

O poder de matar do Estado em Michel Foucault: uma investigação sobre o racismo
Juliana Moreira Streva

O biopoder e os direitos em Michel Foucault
Francisco de Guimaraens

O problema da norma no funcionamento do poder em “A sociedade punitiva”
Angelica de Britto Pereira Pizarro

Entre a lei e a norma
Andrea Moreira Streva

Tempo de vida e tempo de trabalho em “A sociedade punitiva” de Foucault
Felipe de Andrade e Souza

“Homo penalis” no Brasil neoliberal: entendendo o grande encarceramento a partir de Foucault
Clécio Lemos

De la guerra contra el derecho: consideraciones sobre los aportes y limitaciones del enfoque belicoso del dispositivo jurídico
Cristina López

A infâmia e o “Intolerável”: personagens da dissidência na filosofia de Foucault
Julia Naidin

Reformular “la sociedad punitiva” como crítica al capitalismo
Antonio Pele

La disciplina monástica medieval como dispositivo económico-político: una genealogía complementaria de “Vigilar y castigar”
Fabián Ludueña Romandini

O problema da resistência em Foucault: da guerra civil à dispersão?
Rafael Cataneo Becker

Las cuestiones de la verdad y la subjetividad en el proyecto “Vigilar y castigar”
Marcelo Raffin

Foucault e o “estruturalismo”: uma relação “problemática”
Rachel Nigro

Antígona e a coragem de dizer a verdade
Alessandra Vannucci

Entre o amor e a guerra: união homoafetiva e Forças Armadas no Brasil
Aline Caldeira Lopes

A própria vida como prova: perigo e experimentação na educação em Foucault
Bernardo Carvalho Oliveira

Foucault e a questão do sujeito
Joel Birman

Michel Foucault e o nomadismo intelectual
Leon Farhi Neto

O diagrama, funções e operações
Larissa Drigo Agostinho

Cadernos do corpo para o cárcere da alma
Ana Kiffer

Da dessubjetivação nomádica à subjetivação herética: Foucault, Agamben, Deleuze
Peter Pál Pelbart

CFP: The eighteenth annual meeting of the Foucault Circle (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

29 July 2017

CALL FOR PAPERS
The eighteenth annual meeting of the Foucault Circle

John Carroll University
University Heights, OH
April 6-8, 2018

We seek submissions for papers on any aspect of Foucault’s work, as well as studies, critiques, and applications of Foucauldian thinking.

Paper submissions require an abstract of no more than 750 words. All submissions should be formatted as a “.doc” or “.docx” attachment, prepared for anonymous review, and sent via email to the attention of program committee chair Joanna Crosby (foucault.circle@ gmail.com) on or before December 14, 2017. Indicate “Foucault Circle submission” in the subject heading. Program decisions will be announced during the week of January 15, 2018.

This year’s meeting will include a discussion session on Foucault’s 1971 lecture on the work of Manet, Manet and the Object of Painting. The meeting will begin Friday afternoon with a guided tour at the Cleveland Museum of Art focusing on Manet’s work. Morning and afternoon paper sessions will be held on Saturday, followed by a business meeting and dinner. The conference will conclude with paper sessions on Sunday morning. Presenters will have approximately 40 minutes for paper presentation and discussion combined; papers should be a maximum of 3500 words (20-25 minutes reading time).

Logistical information about lodging, transportation, and other arrangements will be available after the program has been announced.

For more information about the Foucault Circle, please see our website:
http://www.foucaultcircle.org
or contact our Coordinator, Ed McGushin:
emcgushin@stonehill.edu

Funding for the 2018 meeting of the Foucault Circle is being provided by
the Don Shula Chair in Philosophy.