Foucault News

Todorof, Maria Borisof, Foucault and the Poster-Child for Conformism or the Cost of Identity in the Same-Sex Marriage Context (August 21, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2364097 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2364097

Open access
Also on academia.edu

Abstract
The paper discusses the reconciliation between state and same-sex marriage which it is suggested could be seen as employment of a progressive agenda for the purposes of shepherding new subjects into the system of normativity and control which family is. The promise of allegiance inherent into sanctioned by society enterprises, a promise coming as much from the hetero as it comes from the homosexual community, creates a dynamic contributing to compliance. Foucault’s ideas are used here to highlight the possible cost attached to this trade-off.

Keywords: Foucault, same-sex marriage, Butler, queer theory, power and control, normativity, identity, manipulation

Allain, K.A., Marshall, B.
Foucault retires to the gym: Understanding embodied aging in the third age
(2017) Canadian Journal on Aging, 36 (3), pp. 402-414.

DOI: 10.1017/S0714980817000216

Abstract
In light of recent social pressures leading to a reimagining of the “Third Age” as a time of constant activity rather than repose and relaxation, this article explores the pressure on individuals to age “successfully” by engaging in physical activity in later life. Through semi-structured interviews with 15 retired or semi-retired gym-goers (eight women and seven men), the article examines how this call to increased activity impacts the ways active mid-life and older adults understand themselves and others. Drawing on Foucault’s understandings of the productive nature of power, we argue that those who perceive themselves as successfully heeding the call to active aging position themselves in contrast to inactive peers. Within a neoliberal framework, these participants self-identify as morally responsible citizens who, as a result of engagement in fitness activities, are authorized to survey and discipline the bodies of those “others” who will not or cannot engage in regular exercise. © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2017.

Author Keywords
Aging; Embodiment; Exercise; Fitness; Foucault; Third age

Index Keywords
adult, aging, clinical article, drawing, exercise, female, human, leisure, male, physical activity, semi structured interview, social problem

Allen, A.
Psychoanalysis and ethnology revisited: Foucault’s historicization of history
(2017) Southern Journal of Philosophy, 55, pp. 31-46.

DOI: 10.1111/sjp.12229

Abstract
This article re-examines the closing sections of Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things in order to address the longstanding question of whether he is best understood as a philosopher or a historian. My central argument is that this question misses the crucial point of Foucault’s work, which is to historicize the notion of history (as it is traditionally understood, represented by History with a capital H), which Foucault takes to be central to the historical a priori of modernity. An examination of his historicization of History thus reveals that Foucault is neither simply a philosopher—because he conceives of philosophy in modernity as a historical enterprise— nor a historian—because his own historical approach is designed to transform the modern historical a priori from within. This analysis also sheds new light of Foucault’s relationship to psychoanalysis and his conception of critique. © 2017, University of Memphis, Department of Philosophy. All rights reserved.

Martinson, M.
Lutheran secularism as a challenge for constructive theology: A Swedish perspective, a foucauldian proposal
(2017) Dialog, 56 (3), pp. 233-243.

DOI: 10.1111/dial.12334

Abstract
In this article the Swedish Lutheran heritage is discussed in relation to its historical connections with secularism. The question is raised whether and how constructive and liberating Lutheran theology can be developed under such conditions. In order to deal with this problem, Michel Foucault’s late philosophy of truth and subjectivity is discussed. A proposition is made for a constructive theology that does not retreat from secularism but is critically involved in the secular through an emphasized confidence in God. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals and Dialog, Inc.

Author Keywords
Constructive theology; Michel Foucault; Secularism; Swedish lutheranism; Truth

Document Type: Article
Source: Scopus

Bilge Akbalik, The modern drama of coup d’etat and systems of discipline: Foucault and political ceremony (2017) Southern Journal of Philosophy, 55, pp. 173-179.
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjp.12232

Abstract
The objective of my comments is to draw attention to the complex relationship between the juridico-political model of sovereignty and disciplinary power in Foucault’s work. I suggest that Elden’s reading of Foucault and Shakespeare opens up new ways to understand contemporary forms of governmentality through a genealogy of political ceremony and theatricality. More specifically, my comments seek to show that an examination of the ceremoniality of coup d’Etat in connection with what Foucault calls the “democratization of sovereignty” is potentially fruitful for examining modern forms of the government of civil society and counterconduct. © 2017, University of Memphis, Department of Philosophy. All rights reserved.