Foucault News

News and resources on French thinker Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Michel Foucault’s Collège de France Lectures (1970-1984): 13 Years at the Collège, 13 Seminars at Columbia

Clare O'Farrell

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9 August 2015

The Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought and
The Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University
present

Michel Foucault’s Collège de France Lectures (1970-1984):
13 Years at the Collège, 13 Seminars at Columbia

Reading the Foucault Collège de France Lectures

with

Seyla Benhabib, Homi Bhabha, Judith Butler, Veena Das, François Ewald, Didier Fassin, James Faubion, Nancy Fraser, Frédéric Gros, Daniele Lorenzini, Nancy Luxon, Achille Mbembe, Paul Rabinow, Judith Revel, Pierre Rosanvallon, Ann Stoler, and Linda Zerilli

in conversation with Columbia University colleagues

Etienne Balibar, Partha Chatterjee, Jean Cohen, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Katherine Franke, Robert Gooding-Williams, Stathis Gourgouris, Axel Honneth, Jeremy Kessler, Lydia Liu, Anna Lvovsky, Sharon Marcus, Alondra Nelson, John Rajchman, Emmanuelle Saada, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Kendall Thomas, Adam Tooze, and Nadia Urbinati

Moderated by

Bernard E. Harcourt and Jesús R. Velasco

Race war, biopolitics, the hermeneutics of the self, governmentality, the examination of one’s conscience, sécurité, the courage of truth, illégalismes, juridical forms, governing through truth, the “punitive society,” truth-telling, judicial apparatuses of repression, the Nu-pieds rebellions of 1639, parrhesia … Michel Foucault’s thirteen years of lectures at the Collège de France introduced us to new concepts and novel research avenues. For many of us, those avenues have been fertile ground for our own theorization, for others fertile ground for critique. They represent, as Foucault intended, rich and productive “pistes de recherches.”

With the publication of the entire series of lectures at the Collège de France—the last, Théories et institutions pénales (1971-1972) just released in May 2015—it is now time to read them chronologically:  to grasp the overall project of those lectures at the Collège, to discuss the full trajectory, and to continue to excavate our own “pistes de recherche” building on Foucault’s.

The Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought and the Columbia Society of Fellows, with the support of the Maison Française, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, are delighted to host 13 seminars on the 13 courses. The seminar series—Foucault 13/13—will extend over the full 2015-2016 academic year at Columbia University. The seminar series will be open to Columbia faculty, fellows, and students, as well as faculty and students from other New York universities.

Each seminar will be led by distinguished scholars from different disciplines. The seminars will take place on Monday evenings in the Fall semester (2015) and Thursday evenings in the Spring semester (2016) from 6:15pm to 8:45pm.

The seminars will be open to students and faculty from Columbia University and other New York universities (please bring university ID). If you are interested in attending and would like a place reserved at the seminar table, please send an e-mail explaining your interest to Claire Merrill at cm3325@columbia.edu.

Seminar Series Schedule:  Foucault 13/13

Monday, September 14, 2015:
Lessons on the Will to Know (1970-1971)

James Faubion, Rice University
and
Nancy Luxon, University of Minnesota

Maison Française
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Monday, September 28, 2015:
Penal Theories and Institutions (1971-1972)

Etienne Balibar, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre & Columbia University
and
François Ewald, Series Editor of Foucault’s Collège de France Lectures

Casa Hispánica
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Monday, October 12, 2015:
The Punitive Society (1972-1973)

Didier Fassin, Institute for Advanced Studies (Princeton) & EHESS,

Axel Honneth, University of Frankfurt & Columbia University, and
Nadia Urbinati, Columbia University

Heyman Center Common Room
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Monday, October 26, 2015:
Psychiatric Power (1973-1974)

Linda Zerilli, University of Chicago,

Anna Lvovsky, Columbia University, and
Alondra Nelson, Columbia University

Heyman Center Common Room
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Monday, November 16, 2015:
Abnormal (1974-1975)

Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University,

Pierre Rosanvallon, Collège de France, Paris, and
Emmanuelle Saada, Columbia University

Maison Française
7:00 to 9:00pm

***

Monday, November 23, 2015:
“Society must be defended” (1975-1976)

Ann Stoler, The New School,

Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University, and
Robert Gooding-Williams, Columbia University

Heyman Center Common Room
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Monday, December 7, 2015:
Security, Territory, Population (1977-1978)

Seyla Benhabib, Yale University

Jeremy Kessler, Columbia University, and
Adam Tooze, Columbia University

Maison Française
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Thursday, January 28, 2016:
The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-1979)

Nancy Fraser, The New School
and
Kendall Thomas, Columbia University

Heyman Center Common Room
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Thursday, February 11, 2016:
The Government of the Living (1979-1980)

Achille Mbembe, University of the Witwatersrand,

Daniele Lorenzini, Université Paris-Est Créteil, and
Jean Cohen, Columbia University

Maison Française
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Thursday, February 25, 2016:
Subjectivity and Truth (1980-1981)

Judith Butler, University of California Berkeley,

Katherine Franke, Columbia University, and
Stathis Gourgouris, Columbia University

Maison Française
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Thursday, March 10, 2016:
The Hermeneutics of the Subject (1981-1982)

Homi Bhabha, Harvard University,

Paul Rabinow, University of California Berkeley, and
Lydia Liu, Columbia University

Heyman Center Common Room
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Thursday, March 31, 2016:
The Government of Self and Others (1982-1983)

Judith Revel, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre,

Sharon Marcus, Columbia University, and
John Rajchman, Columbia University

Heyman Center Common Room
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

Thursday, April 14, 2016:
The Courage of Truth (1983-1984)

Frederic Gros, Sciences Po,

Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Columbia University, and
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University

Casa Hispánica
6:15 to 8:45pm

***

All sessions moderated by
Bernard E. Harcourt and Jesús R. Velasco

The Columbia Maison Française is located on the Columbia campus in Buell Hall next to Low Library. The Heyman Center Common Room is located in the Heyman Center (in East Campus) on the second floor. The Hispanic Institute for Latin American and Iberian Cultures (Casa Hispanica) is located at 612 West 116th Street. A campus map of Columbia University is here.

Time Served: Discipline and Punish Forty Years On

Clare O'Farrell

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7 August 2015

Time Served: Discipline and Punish Forty Years On
Dates: Friday 11 September 2015 – Saturday 12 September 2015
Location: The Galleries of Justice, NG1 1HN
Nottingham Trent University.

Programme

40 years after it was first published in French, the impact of Michel Foucault’s seminal text Discipline and Punish on theories of incarceration, discipline and power remains largely unchallenged. The aim of this conference is to revisit the text in light of the past four decades of penal developments, public debate and social consciousness on incarceration as it continues to constitute society’s mode of punishment par excellence.

In addition to thinking through the legacy of Discipline and Punish and its continued relevance today, specific focus will be given to the text itself, its position within Foucault’s wider critical project and its important relationship with his activism most notably the work of the GIP (Groupe d’Information sur les prisons) during the early 1970s. For example, the publication in 2013 of his 1973 lectures at the Collège de France on La Société Punitive, calls for a return to this period and a new engagement with Foucault’s work on prisons, not least in its pursuit of a more openly Marxist critique of the relationship between incarceration and bourgeois capital accumulation.

The conference will bring together a range of scholars working in the fields of philosophy, sociology, criminology, urban geography, architecture, history, literature, media studies as well as artists, writers and activists involved in projects based in and about prisons and their conditions.

The conference is hosted by the School of Arts and Humanities with the generous support of the School of Social Sciences and the Society for French Studies.

The Universal and the Particular: Chomsky, Foucault, and Post-New Left Political Discourse (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

6 August 2015

Derek Ide The Universal and the Particular: Chomsky, Foucault, and Post-New Left Political Discourse, The Hampton Institute, December 20th, 2014

Postmodern theory was a relatively recent intellectual phenomenon in 1971 when Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault sat down to discuss a wide range of topics, including the nature of justice, power, and intellectual inquiry. At one point Chomsky, who Peter Novick suggests as an example of left-wing empiricism in post-war academia, engages the concrete issue of social activism and invokes the notion of “justice,” to which Foucault asks poignantly: “When, in the United States, you commit an illegal act, do you justify it in terms of justice or of a superior legality, or do you justify it by the necessity of the class struggle, which is at the present time essential for the proletariat in their struggle against the ruling class?” After a brief period he quickly reiterates the question again: “Are you committing this act in virtue of an ideal justice, or because the class struggle makes it useful and necessary?” Chomsky attempts to situate a notion of justice within international law, to which Foucault replies: “I will be a little bit Nietzschean about this… the idea of justice in itself is an idea which in effect has been invented and put to work in different types of societies as an instrument of a certain political and economic power or as a weapon against that power… And in a classless society, I am not sure that we would still use this notion of justice.” In other words, for Foucault justice is only intelligible within a relative framework of class antagonisms. Meanings of justice may differ, but they are only understandable vis-à-vis certain class positions. Chomsky responds: “Well, here I really disagree. I think there is some sort of an absolute basis–if you press me too hard I’ll be in trouble, because I can’t sketch it out-ultimately residing in fundamental human qualities, in terms of which a ‘real’ notion of justice is grounded.”[1]

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Mark Redhead, Complimenting rivals: Foucault, Rawls and the problem of public reasoning (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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4 August 2015

Mark Redhead, Complimenting rivals: Foucault, Rawls and the problem of public reasoning, Philosophy Social Criticism February 16, 2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453715568922

Abstract
This article pursues two questions: Can one use Foucault’s later writings on parrhesia and Kant to create a Foucaldian approach to public reason? If so, what lessons might those attracted to John Rawls’ well-known model of public reason draw from a Foucaldian orientation? By putting Foucault into a competitive yet productive relationship with Rawls, this article addresses some of the latter’s shortcomings. In doing so it also makes a larger argument about the need to develop approaches to democratic deliberation that involve engagement with – rather than simple toleration and/or accommodation of – the various ‘reasonable’ ethical commitments deliberators, on some fundamental level, reason in light of. The justificatory aims of public reason are best achieved when participants’ most-cherished beliefs are opened to critical dialogue rather than banished to the realm of the ‘non-political’. The article begins by briefly illuminating the salient features of Rawls’ model of public reasoning as well as three problems that ensue with the limitations it places on discourses regulated by public reason. It then attempts to distill a Foucaldian approach to public reason by briefly discussing 4 elements of Foucault’s later work on Rawls’ philosophical godfather Kant together with several features of the antiquarian studies of parrhesia that Foucault was conducting at the time these Kantian works were written. Third, Jeffrey Stout’s recent account of theistic democratic actors in some of the most economically disadvantaged US localities demonstrates how many of the ideals integral to this Foucaldian approach to public reasoning built on engaging (rather than simply tolerating and/or accommodating) contrasting ethical perspectives are central to some concrete practices of public reasoning. It concludes with some thoughts on the necessity of publicly reasoning through rather than independently of our deepest commitments.

Deliberative democracy
Michel Foucault
grass-roots organizing
public reason
John Rawls

Talks at three workshops – on Foucault and Artemidorus, Earth, and Foucault and Shakespeare – with links to some audio recordings

Clare O'Farrell

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3 August 2015

stuartelden's avatarProgressive Geographies

I attended and spoke at three workshops last week. First, at the Monash University study centre in Prato, Italy, on modern reappropriations of Hellenistic Ethics. I ran a reading seminar on Foucault’s reading of Artemidorus. The other sessions were by Susan James and Aurelia Armstrong on Spinoza’s Ethics; Daniel Conway and Keith Ansell-Pearson on Nietzsche’s reading of Epicurus; and John Sellars and Matthew Sharpe on two translations in progress of essays by Pierre Hadot. It was a tremendous privilege to hear the other discussions, especially – for me – Keith and Dan on Nietzsche, and Matt on Hadot.

The day of reading sessions was between two workshops with formal papers, only small parts of which I was able to attend. Initially the seminar was supposed to be just a discussion session – of the first chapters of History of Sexuality Vol III and the chapters on sexual dreams from…

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Asli Daldal, Power and Ideology in Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci: A Comparative Analysis (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

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2 August 2015

Asli Daldal, Power and Ideology in Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci: A Comparative Analysis, Review of History and Political Science, Vol 2 No 2 June 2014
Abstract
Full PDF available

Abstract
In devising their theories of power and ideology both Gramsci and Foucault make use of Machiavelli’s notion of “relations of force”. They therefore diffuse the power relations to the complex mechanisms of society. Power in Gramscian analysis resides in ideology. Or in other words, to be conscious of the complex social network-hegemonic forces-within which an individual realizes himself already generates power. Once a social group is able to modify the ensemble of these relations and make it “common sense”, it is creating a hegemonic order. The concept of power is everywhere in Foucault’s analyses as well as in his theory. Power is “omnipresent”. It comes from everywhere and is produced every moment. Similar to Gramsci, Foucault also sees power as a relation of force that only exists in action. Foucault’s basic difference from Gramsci is that the latter saw power relations in terms of binary oppositions(such as the leaders and the led, the rulers and the ruled etc.). For Foucault though, power, as well as the resistance it generates, are diffused and not localized in some points.

Michel Foucault and the philosophy of punishment (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

31 July 2015

Michel Foucault and the philosophy of punishment, Talking history, Panel discussion, 29 November 2014 Newstalk radio 106-108FM. Irish radio station

Page includes audio podcast.

The philosophy of punishment is an area of study that is relatively unaddressed and certainly does not resonate in the wider public consciousness.

The work of Michel Foucault went a long way to shedding further light on the philosophies behind discipline and punishment. This was particularly evident with his work ‘Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison’ (Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison) published in 1975.

While much study had been conducted in this area prior to Foucault, with this publication, he brought the issue to the fore in the 20th century.

Foucault analysed the development of a culture that resulted in the prison system dominating the area of punishment, as society gradually moved away from the use of torture.

Foucault ultimately suggests that it is the use and subjugation of power that influences an institutions use of punishment. He rejects any notion that the development of this system had been motivated by any humanitarian ideals, or that this philosophy of punishment was initially intended as a form of rehabilitation.

While he does not suggest that this is the result of some grand master plan, he evaluates why it has developed in this manner and how this relates to society on a larger scale.

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Foucault, sustainable tourism, and relationships with the environment (human and nonhuman) (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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30 July 2015

Hanna, P., Johnson, K., Stenner, P., Adams, M.
Foucault, sustainable tourism, and relationships with the environment (human and nonhuman)
(2015) GeoJournal, 80 (2), pp. 301-314.

DOI: 10.1007/s10708-014-9557-7

Abstract
Drawing on contemporary research into ethical consumption and sustainable tourism this article starts by outlining the ways in which sustainable tourism (and other forms of ethical consumption) has been understood as a means to perform class based distinctions. At this stage, it is suggested that whilst class may be one factor in understanding such a complex phenomena there might also be a need to examine the practices of sustainable tourist in a manner that takes seriously individual attempts to ‘be ethical’. Foucault’s understanding of ethics is then offered as a means through which this can be achieved. A brief account of the method used to read individuals accounts of sustainable tourism through an ethical Foucauldian lens is then presented. Following this the paper presents the analysis of interviews with sustainable tourists focusing on two key elements. Firstly, the analysis presents the emotional and reciprocal elements of interactions between sustainable tourists and the human ‘other’. Secondly the analysis examines the relationship between the sustainable tourist and non-human environments to further develop the understanding of the emotional and reciprocal elements in light of a Foucauldian ethics. In conclusion it is suggested that rather than merely representing a mode of class distinction, sustainable tourism can be understood through an appreciation of the emotional and reciprocal relationship with the other, thus taking seriously individuals attempts to engage with ethical practices. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Author Keywords
Ethics; Foucault; Relationships to the environment; Sustainable tourism

Index Keywords
Philosophical aspects; Class-based, Ethical practices, Ethics, Foucault, Human environment, Key elements, Relationships to the environment, Sustainable tourism; Sustainable development

Arun Iyer, Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures: The Case of Heidegger and Foucault (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

29 July 2015

Arun Iyer, Towards an Epistemology of RupturesThe Case of Heidegger and Foucault., Bloomsbury, 2014

See also Review by H.A. Nethery at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

About
By systematically uncovering and comprehensively examining the epistemological implications of Heidegger’s history of being and Foucault’s archaeology of discursive formations, Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures shows how Heidegger and Foucault significantly expand the notions of knowledge and thought. This is done by tracing their path-breaking responses to the question: What is the object of thought? The book shows how for both thinkers thought is not just the act by which the object is represented in an idea, and knowledge not just a state of the mind of the individual subject corresponding to the object. Each thinker, in his own way, argues that thought is a productive event in which the subject and the object gain their respective identity and knowledge is the opening up of a space in which the subject and object can encounter each other and in which true and false statements about an object become possible. They thereby lay the ground for a new conceptual framework for rethinking the very relationship between knowledge and its object.

Table Of Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Texts
Introduction
1. Heidegger’s Reformulation of the Essence of Thought (I): From the Transcendental Power of the Imagination to the Ontological Power of Thought
2. Heidegger’s Reformulation of the Essence of Thought (II): On the Relationship between Thought and Being
3. Heidegger’s Reformulation of the Essence of Knowledge: From Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism to Heidegger’s Historical Ontology
4. Foucault’s Reformulation of the Essence of Thought in The Order of Things
5. Foucault’s Reformulation of the Essence of Knowledge: From Husserlian Phenomenology to Foucauldian Archaeology
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Reviews
“Epistemology as traditionally conceived seeks to determine the nature of knowledge and justification. Its point of departure is Plato’s critique of the relativism of Protagoras, who according to Plato erred by accepting Heraclitus’ construal of being as becoming. Truth, knowledge, and justification must be grounded in timeless entities of some sort. Arun Iyer shows how Heidegger and Foucault reverse this Platonic argument. For them, truth, knowledge, and justification are irreducibly historical. Iyer’s elaboration of their views is subtle, original, and thought-provoking.” –  Andrew Cutrofello, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, USA

“This book makes it clear how one can develop a strictly epistemological approach to thinkers as complex as Husserl, Heidegger, and Foucault, and how one can draw basic consequences from their thoughts for a theory of knowledge that admits of breaks, ruptures, and discontinuously emerging epistemic formations. Moreover, it shows how a historical thinking in philosophy can be elaborated without having recourse to any aprioristic philosophy of history. Finally, it provides a lucid analysis of the historical conditions human knowledge finds itself submitted to. For all of these reasons, it is a highly remarkable contribution to contemporary continental European philosophy.” –  Laszlo Tengelyi, of Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany.

Michalinos Zembylas, ‘Pedagogy of discomfort’ and its ethical implications: the tensions of ethical violence in social justice education (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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28 July 2015

Michalinos Zembylas,
‘Pedagogy of discomfort’ and its ethical implications: the tensions of ethical violence in social justice education
(2015) Ethics and Education, 10(2), 163–174.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2015.1039274

Abstract
This essay considers the ethical implications of engaging in a pedagogy of discomfort, using as a point of departure Butler’s reflections on ethical violence and norms. The author shows how this attempt is full of tensions that cannot, if ever, be easily resolved. To address these tensions, the author first offers a brief overview of the notion of pedagogy of discomfort and discusses its relevance with Foucault’s idea of ‘ethic of discomfort’ and the promise of ‘safe classroom.’ Then, he focuses on Butler’s account of ethical violence and norms to show how the subject’s constitution and regulation are inextricably linked to violence in several ways. In the final part of the paper, the author turns more specifically to the ways in which a pedagogy of discomfort might entail ethical violence, suggesting how the turn to a nonviolent ethics might become possible or whether the ethical resonances of that challenge will always entail a degree of ambivalence. © 2015 Taylor & Francis

Author Keywords
ethical norms; ethical violence; Judith Butler; pedagogy of discomfort; social justice education

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