Foucault News

Foucault News taking a short break (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

16 June 2016

Note from the editor

I will be taking a break from Foucault News for about a month while I attend the Foucault @ 90 conference in Scotland and take a short holiday. Posts will be sporadic until mid to late July.

You might be interested to know that the volume of Foucault related activity is always increasing and that there is considerably more material now than when I initially started this blog in September 2010. I currently already have quite a large backlog of material ready to post when I return.

Please don’t hesitate to send news on to me in the meantime. I will post it up as I can. Could I also take the opportunity to ask you to send me messages to my email address rather than via Facebook as I tend not to check Facebook as often.

Clare O’Farrell

This is a Google ngram which even if it only measures up to 2008, demonstrates the rate of citation of Foucault’s work against a number of other thinkers who are popular in the discipline of education.

Foucault post mortem en Europe (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

15 June 2016

Pascal Hintermeyer (ed.) Foucault post mortem en Europe, Presses universitaires de Strasbourg, 2015

Michel Foucault continue à marquer des pans entiers de la pensée contemporaine en apparaissant comme un penseur à multiples facettes, qui se joue des frontières, bouscule les clivages établis, évolue sans cesse, surgit là où on ne l’attendait pas, ouvrant ainsi de nouvelles perspectives.

Depuis sa mort, en 1984, son influence épistémologique, géographique et culturelle n’a cessé de croître. Pour expliquer son rayonnement international, on insiste souvent sur son succès aux États-Unis. Nous nous intéressons ici à sa réception dans plusieurs aires culturelles européennes et au positionnement de son œuvre par rapport à divers auteurs (Lacan, Habermas, Weber, etc.).

L’influence exercée par Foucault post mortem à travers la diffusion de toute une terminologie issue de ses travaux est un signe de cette empreinte durable: assujettissement, panoptisme, dispositifs, biopolitique.

Ainsi se dessine un portrait de Foucault à la fois cohérent et divers. Cohérent dans son refus des essentialismes et des téléologies, dans sa volonté de transcender les divisions instituées. Divers dans ses talents, ses combats, ses initiatives.

What are you rebelling against Johnny? Collectif f71 (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

14 June 2016

What are you rebelling against, Johnny ?

initié par le collectif F71 et le Centre Pénitentiaire de Fresnes – SPIP 94.

Cette présentation est l’aboutissement d’ateliers menés par le collectif F71 avec un groupe de détenus du Centre Pénitentiaire de Fresnes et des élèves de théâtre du Conservatoire Municipal – Gabriel Fauré. Sur scène, ils évoquent ensemble la naissance du Rock’n’roll aux
Etats-Unis, dans le climat ségrégationniste des années 50.

Après une date en détention et une au Conservatoire du 5e arrondissement de Paris, la dernière restitution publique aura lieu :

le mercredi 15 juin 2016 à 19h à La Maison des Métallos dans le cadre de “Fin de Chantier”

94 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud – Paris – 11e arr.

L’entrée est libre mais la réservation est conseillée, merci donc de nous informer de votre présence par retour de mail ou par téléphone au 06 22 13 06 82 ou directement auprès de la Maison des Métallos les après midi au 01 47 00 25 20 ou par mail à reservation@maisondesmetallos.org

What are you rebelling against, Johnny ?
Texte : Stéphanie Farison et Lucie Nicolas
Intervenants : Stéphanie Farison, Jane Joyet, Siegfried Mandacé et Lucie Nicolas.
Régie Générale : Frank Condat

Production : Le collectif F71 – La concordance des temps, avec le soutien de la Permanence Artistique et Culturelle de la Région Ile-de-France et la DRAC Île de France dans le cadre du dispositif “Culture et Justice” – Le Centre Pénitentiaire de Fresnes – Le Service Pénitentiaire d’Insertion et de Probation du Val-de-Marne (SPIP 94) et son coordinateur culturel (Romain Dutter) – Le CMA 5 de Paris, Hacène Larbi – directeur et le BEAPA ainsi que la Maison des Métallos, Etablissement culturel de la Ville de Paris.

Kaveh Dastooreh, Le dilemme de la continuite et de la discontinuite. La diversite methodologique foucaldienne (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

13 June 2016

Kaveh Dastooreh, Le dilemme de la continuite et de la discontinuite. La diversite methodologique foucaldienne, Connaissances et savoirs, 2016

Sociologie – 62 pages – 140×200
ISBN : 9782753903319

La pensée de Michel Foucault est souvent présentée comme une pensée discontinuitiviste, comme si la discontinuité était le seul thème administrant son travail. En étudiant ce que Foucault, lui-même, pouvait commenter à ce propos et en examinant de près son travail, nous pouvons constater que la discontinuité n’est pas le seul thème administrateur de son travail, et nous pouvons y trouver en abondance des images de continuité temporelle. Bien que, parfois, Foucault accorde un privilège à la discontinuité temporelle, ces images ne reflètent en aucun cas une quelconque opposition aux continuités, qui se trouvent par ailleurs de manière récurrente dans son entreprise. Cette recherche montre donc en premier lieu que ces deux thèmes relèvent d’une complexité méthodologique dans la pensée de Foucault. Nous montrons comment ces thèmes sont engagés par Foucault, dans un rapport loin d’être négatif ou paradoxal mais qui instaure leur complémentarité et qui les amène à cohabiter dans son uvre. Pour ce faire, et dans un second temps, nous revenons alors sur la conception foucaldienne de l’histoire au sein de laquelle nous contextualisons ces deux thèmes dans leurs propres places théoriques et méthodologiques. Au final, nous verrons que ces conceptions de continuité, de discontinuité et ainsi sa définition de l’histoire ne sont pas possibles que par une lecture que Foucault a faite de Nietzsche pour bâtir une pensée de « singularité » et éviter à tout prix ne pas fonder ces recherches sur une théorie de la connaissance.

L’AUTEUR
Kaveh Dastooreh a obtenu en 2011 son diplôme de doctorat en sociologie à l’Université Paris V – René Descartes Sorbonne. Il a des expériences d’enseignements dans des universités françaises comme Université de Paris Descartes et Université d’Évry Val d’Essonne, ainsi qu’à l’étranger. Il a publié un ouvrage en 2015 chez L’Harmattan intitulé : “Vers une sociologie foucaldienne”. Il a également traduit la série de livres de “L’Histoire de la sexualité de Michel Foucault”, du français au kurde. Il est membre de l’Association internationale des sociologues.

Foucauldian Genealogy and Maoism (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

12 June 2016

Foucauldian Genealogy and Maoism

Thanasis Lagios

February 05, 2016

DOI : 10.13095/uzh.fsw.fb.130 )

Keywords: genealogy | leftism | maoism | nietzsche | politics

Link to issue on conference

Concerning the origin and foundation of the method of genealogy in Foucault’s work, there is an astonishingly unanimous “interpretative consensus” among Foucault scholars.^[1] While there is great disagreement about a vast range or many aspects of Foucault’s thought and practice, it seems that there is an almost harmonious agreement regarding the emergence of genealogy in his work. The secondary literature on Foucauldian genealogy feels obliged to repeat reverently and respectfully: in the beginning was the word of Nietzsche.

Foucault himself made no secret of his intellectual affinity to Nietzsche’s genealogical method. On the backcover of the French edition of Discipline and Punish in 1975 he posed the main question of his book in explicit Nietzschean terms by asking “could we do the genealogy of modern morality starting from a political history of the body?” [peut-on faire la généalogie de la morale moderne à partir d’une histoire politique des corps?] resonating deeply and sonorously Nietzsche’s groundbreaking Genealogy of Morality of 1887. Moreover, he confessed in what was meant to be his final interview: “I am simply Nietzschean, and I try to see, on a number of points, and to the extent that it is possible, with the aid of Nietzsche’s texts – but also with anti-Nietzschean theses (which are nevertheless Nietzschean!) – what can be done in this or that domain.”^[2]

The Origins of Neoliberalism: Modeling the Economy from Jesus to Foucault (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

11 June 2016

Dotan Leshem, The Origins of Neoliberalism: Modeling the Economy from Jesus to Foucault, Columbia University Press, 2016

Dotan Leshem recasts the history of the West from an economic perspective, bringing politics, philosophy, and economics closer together and revealing the significant role of Christian theology in shaping economic and political thought. He begins with early Christianity’s engagement with economic knowledge and the influence of this interaction on politics and philosophy. He then follows the secularization of economics in liberal and neoliberal theory, showing it to be a perversion of earlier communitarian tradition. Only by radically relocating the origins of modernity in late antiquity, Leshem argues, can we confront neoliberalism.

Introduction: Economy Before Christ
1. From Oikos to Ecclesia
2. Modeling the Economy
3. Economy and Philosophy
4. Economy and Politics
5. Economy and the Legal Framework
6. From Ecclesiastical to Market Economy

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dotan Leshem is senior lecturer in the department of government and political theory at the School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa.

The Foucault Circle Conference Program (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

10 June 2016

The 16th annual meetings of the Foucault Circle
June 29-July 2, 2016

University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia

All sessions in Lecture Room G02 in the Law School Building.
Registration is on-site only. On the first morning, registration will be open in the foyer of the Ground Floor of the Law Building, adjacent to Room G02.
Registration Fee: $30.00 AUD (cash only), payable on the morning of the first day.
This schedule allows 40 minutes total per paper, inclusive of reading and discussion.
It is expected that roundtable participants’ opening remarks will be brief (5-8 min.)

Program Overview

Wednesday, June 29

10:00-10:40 Morning Tea and Registration

10:40-12:00 SESSION #1 (2 papers)

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION #2 (3 papers)

15:30-16:00 Afternoon Tea

16:00-17:20 SESSION #3 (2 papers)

17:30- Drinks reception

Thursday, June 30

08:30-09:50 SESSION #4 (2 papers)

09:50-10:20 Morning Tea

10:20-12:00 ROUNDTABLE #1

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION #5 (3 papers)

15:30-15:45 Afternoon Tea

15:45-17:05 SESSION #6 (2 papers)

17:15-18:00 BUSINESS MEETING

Evening Local dinner
Friday, July 1

08:30-09:50 SESSION #7 (2 papers)

9:50-10.20: Morning Tea

10:20-12:00 ROUNDTABLE #2

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION #8 (3 papers)

15:30-16:00 Afternoon Tea

16:00-18:00 WORKSHOP/SEMINAR

Evening Local dinner

Saturday, July 2

09:00-10:20 SESSION #9 (2 papers)

10:30-12:30 SESSION #10 (3 papers)

Program Detail

Wednesday, June 29

10:00-10:40 Registration and Morning Tea

10:40-12:00 SESSION #1: ANATOMICAL ABNORMALITIES

Moderated by Ben Golder (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Benjamin Kunkler (University of Melbourne, Australia)

The Archaeology of Anatomical Knowledge

Matthew Chrulew (Curtin University, Australia)

Abnormal Animals: The Problematisation of Captivity in Hediger and Meyer-Holzapfel

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION #2: CYNICAL GOVERNMENTALITY

Moderated by Daniel McLoughlin (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Miguel Vatter (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Foucault and Strauss on Socratic Natural Right

Özge Yalta Yandaş, (Independent Researcher, Turkey)

Constructing a Neoliberal Art of Government: Urban Regeneration Processes of Istanbul in 2000s

Terry Flew (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

Weberian Themes in Michel Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics lectures

15:30-16:00 Afternoon Tea

16:00-17:20 SESSION #3: DIALOGUES WITH AGAMBEN

Moderated by Paul Patton (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Vanessa Lemm (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Agamben as a Reader of Foucault

Daniel McLoughlin (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Killing in the Name of Life: Foucault and Agamben on Nazism and Biopolitical Sovereignty
17:30- Drinks Reception

Thursday, June 30

08:30-09:50 SESSION #4: FOUCAULDIAN APPROACHES TO SOCIAL WORK

Moderated by Ben Golder (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Sharon Alexander (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)

What does Theorising with Foucault Contribute to Social Worker’s Understanding of Perinatal Mental Health?

Uschi Bay (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)

Working with Foucault’s theorising to elaborate on reflexivity in social work practice

10:20-12:00 ROUNDTABLE #1: FOUCAULT’S CRITIQUE OF NEOLIBERALISM?

Moderated by Mark G E Kelly (Western Sydney University, Australia)

Organized by Paul Patton

Ben Golder (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Paul Patton (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Miguel Vatter (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Terry Flew (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION #5: ANCIENT ENGAGEMENTS

Moderated by Miguel Vatter (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Michael Ure (Monash University, Australia)

Foucault and Nietzsche: Two Philosophical Physicians?

Federico Testa (Monash University, Australia)

Is There a Politics of the Care of the Self in Michel Foucault?

Charles Barbour (Western Sydney University, Australia)

Dismantling the City State: Foucault, Classicism, and Politics in the Ancient World

15:45-17:05 SESSION #6: UNFOLDING EVENTUALITIES

Moderated by Lynne Huffer (Emory, USA)

Farzaneh Haghighi (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

Eventualisation: Multiplying the faces of a polyhedron

Elliot Patsoura (The University of Melbourne, Australia)

Buggering the Fold: Deleuze reads The Order of Things

17:15-18:00 BUSINESS MEETING

Friday, July 1

08:30-09:50 SESSION #7: EPISTEMOLOGICAL AUTONOMY

Moderated by Ben Golder (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Chari Larsson (University of Queensland, Australia)

The Archaeological Art Historian: Didi-Huberman’s Epistemological Debt

Katherine Filbert (Villanova University, USA)

De-Spatializing Critical Agency: Freedom without Autonomy in Foucault and Benjamin

10:20-12:00 ROUNDTABLE #2: FOUCAULT AS A CRITICAL THEORIST: THE ‘CARE OF THE SELF’ AND THE POLITICISATION OF LIFE

Moderated by Charles Barbour (Western Sydney University, Australia)

Organized by Michael Ure (Monash University, Australia)

Michael Ure (Monash University, Australia)

Irene Dal Poz (Monash University, Australia)

Sam O’Brien (Monash University, Australia)

Federico Testa (Monash University, Australia)

12:00-13:30 Lunch

13:30-15:30 SESSION #8: INJUSTICE IN THE STREETS

Moderated by Michael Cowen (Alliance Manchester Business School, UAE)

Sylvain Lafleur (Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada)

Foucault’s justice fonctionnelle and its relationship to legislators and popular illegalism

Joanna Crosby (Morgan State University, USA)

The 2015 Baltimore Protests: A Neoliberal Love Child

Falguni A. Sheth (Emory University, USA)

State Racism, Biopower, and the Mass Migration Problem

16:00-18:00 WORKSHOP ON FOUCAULT AND THE ANTHROPOCENE: reading a new translation of “The Situation of Cuvier in the History of Biology” (DE#077, 1970)

Group discussion facilitated by Lynne Huffer (Emory University, USA)

An English translation of this text will be distributed by PDF in early June.

Saturday, July 2

09:00-10:20 SESSION #9: HETEROTOPIAS

Moderated by Steven Ogden (Charles Sturt University, Australia)

Margaret A. McLaren (Rollins College, USA)

Harems (Brothels) and Hammams as Heterotopias

Charles Villet (Monash South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa)

Oscar Pistorius and the white heterotopia: The suburban laager in post-Apartheid South Africa

10:30-12:30 SESSION #10: POLITICS OF THE NORMATIVE

Moderated by Ben Golder (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Erik Zimmerman (The New School for Social Research, USA)

Resistance and Rupture: Foucault and the Cynicism of Otherness

Mark G E Kelly (Western Sydney University, Australia)

A Sketch for a Genealogy of Normativity

Dianna Taylor (John Carroll University, USA)

The Self-relation, Anti-normalization, and Prospects for Enduring Peace: The Case of Northern Ireland

Moneta, rivoluzione e filosofia dell’avvenire. Nietzsche e la politica accelerazionista in Deleuze, Foucault, Klossowski, Guattari (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

9 June 2016

Pubblicato online l’e.book:
Moneta, rivoluzione e filosofia dell’avvenire. Nietzsche e la politica accelerazionista in Deleuze, Foucault, Klossowski, Guattari (Obsolete Capitalism Free Press – Rizosfera, 2016).
Link at Variazioni foucaultiane

L’antologia a cura di Obsolete Capitalism è scaricabile online gratuitamente.

Autori e autrici: Algorithmic Committee, Sara Baranzoni, Edmund Berger, Lapo Berti, Paolo Davoli, Network Ensemble, Letizia Rustichelli, Obsolete Capitalism, Obsolete Capitalism Sound System, Francesco Tacchini, Paolo Vignola.

Moneta, rivoluzione e filosofia dell’avvenire
a cura di Obsolete Capitalism

Siamo proiettati a velocità fotonica nella comunicazione istantanea e nel controllo continuo mentre le forme di dominio rapido appaiono inarrestabili. Il museo delle ideologie si riempie di concetti in via di esaurimento quali capitalismo, neoliberismo, marxismo, keynesismo. Ora, con più esattezza, il sistema modula i vari flussi che innervano il pianeta: Moneta, Ricerca, Controllo, Informazione, Circuito sono i vecchi nomi che attraverso una nuova velocità producono potere. Maggiore è l’immanenza del Mercato, maggiore è la probabilità che al conflitto si sostituisca l’interruzione, il virus, la fuga di notizie, l’invisibilità, il fuori-circuito, la biforcazione. Uno squarcio nella «zona grigia» dell’egemonia.

Gli autori del libro Moneta, rivoluzione e filosofia dell’avvenire indagano alcune aree poco battute di politica accelerazionista attraverso linee teoriche contagiate dalle filosofie più visionarie: Nietzsche, Klossowski, Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault. Più che analizzare la grande trasformazione culturale in atto, la presente antologia evidenzia i pericoli in cui incorre il pensiero del futuro quando ancora mantiene pratiche, schemi e linguaggi di un’epoca industriale e post-industriale che mostra in tutti i suoi aspetti una crisi perpetua. Siamo tutti coinvolti nel duro intreccio di liberazioni insperate e nuovi asservimenti che ci prospetta la presentificazione del futuro da parte della tecnologia a linguaggio numerico, ma – come afferma Deleuze – «non è il caso né di avere paura, né di sperare, bisogna cercare nuove armi». Sperimentare è dunque il primo impegno politico e filosofico per un futuro differente.

Program: Foucault @ 90 conference (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

8 June 2016

Conference program (PDF) for the Foucault @ 90 conference 22-23 June 2016, in Ayr, University of West Scotland.

Kelvin T. Knight, Placeless places: resolving the paradox of Foucault’s heterotopia (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

8 June 2016

Kelvin T. Knight, Placeless places: resolving the paradox of Foucault’s heterotopia (2016) Textual Practice, 31(1), 141–158.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2016.1156151

ABSTRACT
This article looks to restore Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia to its literary origins, and to thereby resolve the paradox that exists between Foucault’s various definitions of the term. Described by Foucault as both an unimaginable space, representable only in language, and as a kind of semi-mythical real site, examples of which include the mirror, the prison, the library, the garden and the brothel, the heterotopia seems inherently contradictory. However, through a reading of an often overlooked radio broadcast given by Foucault as part of a series on literature and utopia, this article demonstrates that the concept was never intended to refer to real urban sites, but rather pertains exclusively to textual representations of these sites. Subsequently, it looks to draw parallels between Foucault’s remarks about the heterotopia and several examples of his literary criticism, on writers including Sade, Flaubert and Borges. In particular it draws attention to the similarities between Foucault’s definitions of the heterotopia and the language he uses to describe the ‘placeless places’ of Blanchot’s fiction, and to posit the heterotopia as an example of Blanchot’s notion of literary contestation.