Foucault News

Sabrina Smith and Matthew Atencio, “Yoga is yoga. Yoga is everywhere. You either practice or you don’t”: a qualitative examination of yoga social dynamics (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

2 March 2017

Sabrina Smith and Matthew Atencio, “Yoga is yoga. Yoga is everywhere. You either practice or you don’t”: a qualitative examination of yoga social dynamics
(2017) Sport in Society, 20(9), 1167–1184.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2016.1269082

Abstract
Within the context of yoga’s increasing popularity, the prevailing view that yoga is ‘good for everyone’ is often perpetuated by participants. This view is derived from popular media portrayals and activities, as well as scientific research purporting yoga’s health benefits for all citizens. This paper accordingly investigates these dominant claims reproduced about yoga practise in the United States using a qualitative study involving five practitioners. We specifically invoke Michel Foucault’s concepts of discourse and governmentality to interrogate how yogic ‘truths’ are negotiated, taken up, and reproduced by several participants in the San Francisco area. Five in depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a diverse demographic sample of yoga participants. Our findings suggest that these various individuals invested in and reproduced the ideals of social inclusion and multicultural diversity with the accompanying view that yoga operated as a community or ‘family’. The practitioners subsequently acknowledged specific barriers and instances of exclusive practises within yoga and its communities. Yet, in some cases the participants countered that these perceptions of exclusion and barriers to practise could be overcome by individual choice-making; this latter view implicates a specific mode of neo-liberal self-governance. Our analysis therefore suggests that the yoga participants invested in and reproduced ideals of individualism and meritocracy relative to normative neo-liberal yoga discourses. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Index Keywords
California, human, human tissue, individuality, perception, physician, qualitative research, semi structured interview

Laurent Grasso, Visibility is a trap (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 March 2017

Andrew Russeth, Art Basel Hong Kong Announces Plans for Large-Scale ‘Encounters’ Section, Observer blog, 18 March 2013
[…]
– Edouard Malingue Gallery (Hong Kong) will showcase a neon text installation by French artist Laurent Grasso (*1972). Over seven meters wide, Visibility is a Trap, 2012, is a direct reference to Michel Foucault’s theory of Panopticism as elaborated in the theorist’s seminal text ‘Discipline and Punish’ (1975).

Picture from the archello site

Archive: Doing Foucault: inquiring into nursing knowledge with Foucauldian discourse analysis (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 March 2017

Springer RA, Clinton ME. Doing Foucault: inquiring into nursing knowledge with Foucauldian discourse analysis. Nursing Philosophy. 2015 Apr;16(2):87-97

DOI: 10.1111/nup.12079

Abstract
Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) is a methodology that is well suited to inquiring into nursing knowledge and its organization. It is a critical analytic approach derived from Foucault’s histories of science, madness, medicine, incarceration and sexuality, all of which serve to exteriorize or make visible the ‘positive unconscious of knowledge’ penetrating bodies and minds. Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) holds the potential to reveal who we are today as nurses and as a profession of nursing by facilitating our ability to identify and trace the effects of the discourses that determine the conditions of possibility for nursing practice that are continuously shaping and (re)shaping the knowledge of nursing and the profession of nursing as we know it. In making visible the chain of knowledge that orders the spaces nurses occupy, no less than their subjectivities, FDA is a powerful methodology for inquiring into nursing knowledge based on its provocation of deep critical reflection on the normalizing power of discourse.

KEYWORDS:
Foucault; discipline; identity; methodology; nursing knowledge; professional self

Japan’s Public Health Paradigm: Governmentality and the Containment of Harmful Behavior (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

1 March 2017

Borovoy, A.
Japan’s Public Health Paradigm: Governmentality and the Containment of Harmful Behavior
(2017) Medical Anthropology: Cross Cultural Studies in Health and Illness, 36 (1), pp. 32-46.

DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2016.1148033

Abstract
In this essay, I revisit the politics of social control in the context of contemporary public health discussions, touching on the management of obesity and chronic illness. Foucault’s cautionary observations regarding the infiltration of normative social values into the terrain of healing offer a productive framework for considering the politics of public health in the industrialized world. I explore Japan’s public health paradigm and its key features of bureaucratic reform and health interventions through screening, socialization, education, and aggressive lifestyle training, and I consider the close proximity between health and socio-cultural values in the management of chronic conditions in Japan. © 2016 Taylor & Francis.

Author Keywords
Chronic conditions; Japan; obesity; public health; screening

The disposition of concern: an exploration into the affects of the power-knowledge dynamics uncovered during research into pupils’ perceptions of terrorism (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

28 February 2017

Quartermaine, A.
The disposition of concern: an exploration into the affects of the power-knowledge dynamics uncovered during research into pupils’ perceptions of terrorism
(2016) International Journal of Research and Method in Education, pp. 1-13. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/1743727X.2016.1186631

Abstract
In recent years, counter-terrorism measures have become incorporated into the UK education system, with the latest 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act expanding on previous government policy by making it mandatory for schools to be actively involved with counter-terrorism measures [Clause 21, H.M. Government 2015. Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. London: Crown Copyright, 18]. However, during my research into pupils’ perceptions of terrorism, I discovered that conducting such discussions within the classroom setting were restricted from the outset. These findings are useful in demonstrating the difficulties facing those expected to deliver government policy and highlight how education researchers (and teachers) need to be aware of certain considerations prior to engaging in such sensitive subject matter with young people. This article provides an overview of my findings in this regard and demonstrates the complexities associated with discussing the topic of terrorism, in particular it’s relationship with religion, within schools. By using Foucault’s philosophical insights into power-knowledge [[1975] 1991. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin] to analyse this data, I discovered a common trait, which I categorized as ‘the disposition of concern’, that affected and restricted the scope of such discussions. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Author Keywords
education; Foucault; Terrorism

Foucault & Religion. Conference (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

28 February 2017

Foucault & Religion
What consequences has Michel Foucault’s thought had for the study of religion?
The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion
March 10-11, 2017 | Swift Common Room and Lecture Hall

Update 18 July 2026. Link above is to the archived page on the Wayback Machine.

For more information, contact conference organizers Daniel Schultz (danielschultz@uchicago.edu) or Maureen Kelly (makelly@uchicago.edu).

This two-day conference will bring scholars from a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences into a conversation about Foucault and religion.

How has Foucault’s thought contributed to the formation of “religion” as an object of inquiry in different fields? What are the points of contact between practices of the self (spiritual exercises) and the anthropology of ethics?

How do empirical studies of religious and spiritual practices provoke us to rethink Foucault’s corpus?

In what ways do genealogies of the secular trade on Foucault’s analysis of power-knowledge and his use of the concept of critique?

What productive tensions are generated by interdisciplinary appropriations of Foucauldian concepts and critical-genealogical methodologies?

The “and” in the conference’s title intends to evoke a number of possible conjunctures between the two stated themes: the significance of religion within Foucault’s conceptual architecture, as well as the ways in which Foucault’s work has recast anthropological, sociological, and historical discourses on religion as an object of knowledge.

Sponsored by the Martin Marty Center at the Divinity School, the Lichtstern Foundation, the France Chicago Center, the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, the Philosophy of Religions Workshop, the Graduate Council, and the Divinity Students Association.

9:30-10:00 Coffee
10:00 Welcome Remarks and Introduction to keynote speaker:

Arnold I. Davidson, University of Chicago

10:15-12:15 Keynote by Daniele Lorenzini, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne / Columbia University: “
Pleasures, Desire, Concupiscence: The Christian Chapter of Foucault’s History of Sexuality”

Respondents:
Dawn Herrera Helphand, University of Chicago
Steve Collins, University of Chicago

12:15-13:15 Lunch for conference participants

13:15-14:45 Panel 1: Ethics, Self-transformation, and Political resistance

Jonathan Schofer, University of Texas at Austin: “Foucault’s Ethics, the Present Day, and Deuteronomy Rabbah”

Daniel Wyche, University of Chicago: “The Practice of Dignity: The Care of the Self, Relations of Power, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott”

Respondent(s): Maureen Kelly, University of Chicago

14:45-15:15 Coffee break

15:15-16:45 Panel 2: Askesis and the Spirituality of Thought

Jim Faubion, Rice University: “The Indecorous Ascetic”

Ann Burlein, Hofstra University: “A Passion of/for the Unlivable: Raymond Roussel and the Spirituality of Thought”

Respondent(s):
Daniel Schultz, University of Chicago
Xiao-bo Yuan, University of Chicago

16:45-18:00 Reception, Swift Hall, 1st Floor, Common Room

Fredrik Sandberg, Andreas Fejes, Magnus Dahlstedt, Maria Olson, Adult Education as a Heterotopia of Deviation: A Dwelling for the Abnormal Citizen (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

27 February 2017

Fredrik Sandberg, Andreas Fejes, Magnus Dahlstedt, Maria Olson
Adult Education as a Heterotopia of Deviation: A Dwelling for the Abnormal Citizen (2016) Adult Education Quarterly, 66 (2), pp. 103-119.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0741713615618447

Abstract
We argue that municipal adult education (MAE) can be seen as a place for displaced and abnormal citizens to gain temporary stability, enabling their shaping into desirable subjects. Drawing on a poststructural discursive analysis, we analyze policy texts and interviews with teachers and students. Our analysis illustrates how two distinct but interrelated student subjectivities are shaped: the rootless, unmotivated, and irresponsible student; and the responsible, motivated, and goal-oriented student. The difference is that the latter of these subjectivities is positioned as desirable. MAE provides a temporary place in time, a heterotopia of deviation, allowing students to escape precarious employment. The heterotopia places the students in a positive utopian dream of the future. A utopia is not a real place, and what is to become of the students after finishing MAE is not determined; the students themselves should shape it. If they fail, in line with a neoliberal governmentality, it is their own fault. © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015.

Author Keywords
adult education; citizenship; Foucault; heterotopia of deviation; poststructuralism; power; precarious employment

Alain de Libera, Destructionis destructio. Heidegger, Foucault et la pensée médiévale. Cours (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

27 February 2017

Alain de Libera, Destructionis destructio. Heidegger, Foucault et la pensée médiévale

Collège de France
13 février – 27 mars 2017
17:00 19:00 Cours
Amphithéâtre Marguerite de Navarre – Marcelin Berthelot

Les cours et séminaires sont gratuits, en accès libre, sans inscription préalable.

With thanks to Eric Hennion for this news

‘Favourite places in school’ for lower-set ‘ability’ pupils: school groupings practices and children’s spatial orientations (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

26 February 2017

Brown, C.
‘Favourite places in school’ for lower-set ‘ability’ pupils: school groupings practices and children’s spatial orientations
(2016) Children’s Geographies, pp. 1-14. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2016.1269154

Abstract
This paper contributes to the recent turn within Children’s Geographies concerned with understanding and illuminating educational inequalities. The focus is upon pupils assigned to lower ‘ability’ groupings, in a school under pressure to raise attainment. The objective of the paper is twofold, firstly to consider how school grouping practices affect children’s sense of belonging in lessons, and secondly, to contextualise these findings against children’s spatial orientations within the broader school environment. It is argued that a spatial focus may shed light upon the educational policy drivers that contribute to the exclusion of disadvantaged children. Neo-liberal imperatives of accountability and performance can be seen to shape hierarchies of belonging, where pupils’ positioning in ‘ability’ groupings enables/limits the spatial agency that they can exert. Macro policy concerns are mapped onto micro school processes concerning the construction and governance of school spaces, using theoretical insights from Michel Foucault and R.D Sack. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Author Keywords
ability grouping; Foucault; neo-liberal education policy; R.D. Sack; school inclusion/exclusion; Spatial orientations

Bethan Holt, The affordable staple that has become the Duchess of Cambridge’s secret wardrobe weapon (2017)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

26 February 2017

Editor: What do Foucault and the Duchess of Cambridge have in common? The polo neck skivvy!

Bethan Holt,The affordable staple that has become the Duchess of Cambridge’s secret wardrobe weapon, The Telegraph, 23 February 2017

The Duchess of Cambridge is now, we can all agree, a pro in the royal dressing stakes. For her increasingly regular royal engagements, she strikes a careful balance between introducing new pieces, whether by designers she’s never worn before or old faithfuls like Alexander McQueen or L.K Bennett, and reviving favourite looks from past appearances. This means that she has become both famously ‘thrifty’ but also noted for her glamour and support of British design names. […]

But it’s the Duchess’s black polo neck jumper which she layered underneath the nipped-waist jacket that was today’s most noteworthy outfit addition. It marks the third time this year alone that Kate has worn this staple piece for a public engagement. […]

For such a useful and seemingly simple piece, the polo neck has a rather illustrious history. Its beginnings were humble, being used mostly as a practical cover-up. But during the 20th century it became a favourite of the intellectual elite. The French philosopher Michel Foucault was renowned for his love of a white jersey version.