Foucault News

Beck, Daniel
Put in Humour: Creating Indifference Through the Generation of Grotesque Memes (2024) Alternatives

DOI: 10.1177/03043754241283956

Open access

Abstract
This article proposes a power-focused perspective for International Relations to specifically undertake an examination of grotesque and ridiculous representations of leader figures. This is illustrated by examples of Vladimir Putin in public media and online. By bringing together the theoretical insights of Achille Mbembe and Michel Foucault on the grotesque, the paper elaborates how displaying Putin in public in grotesque ways contributes to political power through creating indifference towards excessive behaviour and the truthfulness of representations among the audience. The theoretical concept of the grotesque enables an innovative and context-sensitive understanding of power mechanisms underlying the public representations of Putin’s governance. The article highlights how ridiculous performances can be a source of political power. Mbembe observed how elements of the grotesque are fundamental to any dominance structure. Grotesque leaders operate outside of the establishment and thereby can subvert the existing power hierarchy. Consequently, Putin seems to be immune to ridicule and even benefits from being ridiculed in public. By being represented and perceived as laughable, the grotesque protects dictators through a pre-emptive critique from fierce and sustainable opposition as the satisfaction of joking about the most powerful is highly fascinating and thereby disincentivises resistance. Simultaneously, audiences encounter indifferences in distinguishing between reality and the imaginative creations of meme creators. By analysing prominent examples of grotesque media representations, such as depictions of Putin seated on an oversized table or riding shirtless on horses, the study explores the connection between grotesque representations, humour, and indifference towards rude behaviour. © The Author(s) 2024.

Author Keywords
grotesque; humour; legitimation; ridiculous; state

Dean, Mitchell. 2024. “The Concept of Authoritarian Governmentality Today.” Global Society, June, 1–20..

DOI: 10.1080/13600826.2024.2362739

Open access

Abstract
The paper examines “authoritarian governmentality”. It argues that there are salient differences between the contemporary intellectual and political context and those of the 1990s when it was first developed. Chief among these is the confidence by which we can approach liberal governing itself as the norm of contemporary governmentality. The first wave of governmentality studies identified authoritarian governmentality in both non-liberal regimes and in the consequences of liberalism’s norm of the self-responsible subject and its governing through civil society. This paper extends these observations: first by proposing an analysis of the kinds of order that different rationalities and technologies invoke, and secondly, by arguing for the linking of an analytics of government to both the practical capacities of sovereignty and the practices through which supreme authority is constituted. While liberal and authoritarian governmentalities are far from mutually exclusive, the absent concept of authority helps clarify what is at issue. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Author Keywords
authority; Foucault; Government; order; sovereignty

[…]
Today, the rise of what is called populism, particularly in its hard right-wing versions, in liberal-democracies, and the awareness of diverse forms of autocratic rule throughout the world, has sharpened the concern for authoritarian measures and potentials in the way in which governing occurs. It was one thing to point to the necessity of authoritarian practice within the relatively stable liberal political and economic orders of the late twentieth century; it is quite another to note the rise of opportunistic, messianic, volatile, and apparently anti-rational movements and forces within and outside these liberal orders today (Vasilache 2023). However one diagnoses the present, the last decade has witnessed a series of mutations and disruptive forces in liberal-democracies and in the international order.

Joranger, L.
The Evolution and Integration of Life and Theory in Foucault’s Work on Power
(2024) Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science

DOI: 10.1007/s12124-024-09862-8

Abstract
The article is a response to Kaldybekov and his colleague’s, 2024 paper about Foucault’s theory on power. I argue that it is difficult to understand Foucault’s theory of power without looking into his intellectual life and experiences, especially his war experiences. The objective of my study is to show that there is a connection between Foucault’s ideas about power and his own lived life, and that he always has been critical of totalitarian theories although he seems influenced by Marxist theories, early in his career. In the paper I show how he deals with this dilemma by incorporating some of Nietzsche’s ideas into his thinking. To illustrate the connection between Foucault’s lived life and his theories about power, I take a particular point of departure in Foucault’s lecture series on psychiatric power in the 1970s and an interview conducted by the Italian journalist Trombadori. © The Author(s) 2024.

Author Keywords
Collective experiences; Culture; Evolution; Foucault; Ideas; Integration; Life experiences; Power; Revolution; Theory

Index Keywords
article, career, cultural anthropology, evolution, human, integration, interview, male, personal experience, special situation for pharmacovigilance, theory, thinking, war

Taheri, H.
Censoring Iranian cinema: normalization of the “modest” woman (2024) Feminist Media Studies

DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2024.2328089

Abstract
This research examines the structure of Iranian film that has normalized the image of the “modest” Iranian woman, which has little to no relation to the reality of Iranian women. This power structure includes not only the modesty censorship rules of the Islamic Republic but also international film festivals. Utilizing the concepts of reactive and proactive censorship measures, I argue that censorship not only limits and reacts but also creates the image of the modest woman. Counterintuitively, film festivals play a substantial role in this normalization process. In addition, I contest the popular conceptions of “resistance” when discussing Iranian cinema at foreign film festivals and in academia, arguing that the resistance of films and artists is restricted to the structure that governs them. In addition, I challenge the concept of “Iranian national cinema,” in which film festivals promote a repressive government to oppose another power system; specifically, they reward the image of the Islamic Republic’s ideal woman to oppose popular Hollywood portrayals of women. My objective is not to downplay the value of Iranian cinema but to highlight its flaws and encourage a more critical approach to the international power system regulating Iranian films. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Author Keywords
censorship; Iranian cinema; Michel Foucault; modesty rules; resistance