Foucault News

Foucault and the use of critique: breaching the self-evidence of educational practices (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

28 September 2014

Bye, J.
Foucault and the use of critique: breaching the self-evidence of educational practices
(2014) International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Article in Press.

Abstract
This paper poses methodological questions about the role and limits of Foucault’s concept of governmentality in education research. Firstly, it argues for the utility of governmentality as a means of exploring questions of power regardless of domain or scale. Secondly, it explores the boundary between the tasks of formulating critique and articulating reform agendas while working within the Foucauldian ethos. It does this via the examination of a research project which used Foucault’s concept of governmentality to observe the ways young people are regulated and shaped through education and training at a senior college in Australia. The goal of the examination is to shift the focus from the original findings, which highlighted the powerful effects of governing agendas, to a closer examination of their points of failure in local contexts. This shift takes up Foucault’s idea that government is unpredictable and that within the complexity of the assemblages which make government possible, the possibility for unanticipated outcomes and indeed points of failure, is always present. The paper argues that the change of focus is productive and provides a more complex understanding of the interplay between government and resistance. A focus on points of failure of the regulatory and normative aspects of government is taken up with a view to considering the possible links between this aspect of governmentality critique and the development of emergent rather than imposed reform agendas, inspired by local examples of resistance and transgressive practices.

Author Keywords
critique; Foucault; governmentality; resistance; senior colleges

DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2014.916003

Lacan, Derrida or Foucault?

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

27 September 2014

Try this quick quiz – who said what? -, Lacan, Derrida or Foucault? on the French Embassy’s site in the USA.

The Republic of the Living: Biopolitics and the Critique of Civil Society (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

26 September 2014

Miguel Vatter, The Republic of the Living: Biopolitics and the Critique of Civil Society, Fordham University Press,June 2014

ISBN: 9780823256020

Further info

Details of workshop on book below description.

This book takes up Foucault’s hypothesis that liberal “civil society,” far from being a sphere of natural freedoms, designates the social spaces where our biological lives come under new forms of control and are invested with new forms of biopower. In order to test this hypothesis, its chapters examine the critical theory of civil society — from Hegel and Marx through Lukacs, Adorno, Benjamin, and Arendt—from the new horizon opened up by Foucault’s turn to biopolitics and its reception in recent Italian theory.

Negri, Agamben, and Esposito have argued that biopolitics not only denotes new forms of domination over life but harbors within it an affirmative relation between biological life and politics that carries an emancipatory potential. The chapters of this book take up this suggestion by locating this emancipatory potential in the
biopolitical feature of the human condition that Arendt called “natality.” The book proceeds to illustrate how natality is the basis for a republican articulation of an affirmative biopolitics. It aims to renew the critical theory of civil society by pursuing the traces of natality as a “surplus of life” that resists the oppressive government of life found in the capitalist political economy, in the liberal system of rights, and in the bourgeois family.

By contrast, natality offers the normative foundation for a new “republic of the living.” Finally, natality permits us to establish a relation between biological life and contemplative life that reverses the long-held belief in a privileged relationship of thinking to the possibility of our death. The result is a materialist, atheological conception of contemplative life as eternal life.

Workshop

The Research Unit in European Philosophy at Monash University is holding a workshop on Miguel Vatter’s new book The Republic of the Living: Biopolitics and the Critique of Civil Society (Fordham University Press, 2014)

Featuring: Miguel Vatter (UNSW), Catherine Mills (Monash) and Jessica Whyte (UWS).

Wednesday, October 8, 2-4 pm Menzies Building, N602

For room booking purposes RSVP to Alison.Ross@monash.edu by Wednesday October 1

CFP: Neoliberal Gender, Neoliberal Sex (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

25 September 2014

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 7^TH NOVEMBER 2014

Assuming Gender would like to invite submissions to our forthcoming special issue: ‘Neoliberal Gender, Neoliberal Sex’.

Neoliberalism has recently come to define a particular object of critical enquiry, especially after the financial crisis of 2008. Considered by some to have superseded terms such as postmodernism and globalisation, neoliberalism is no longer taken as merely an economic ideology adhered to by a rich elite but as a global norm that touches the lives of billions. In this special issue we aim to explore how neoliberalism, as a form of governmental rationality, goes beyond the realm of fiscal conduct and has affected, influenced or moulded the construction of gendered subjectivities, especially in the realm of cultural production. While much has been written about the deployment of neoliberal strategies and techniques as a mode of governance, especially through the lens of Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’, less has dealt with its consequences on how these transformations have affected representations of gender and sexuality in popular culture. This special issue aims to add to this growing field of critical enquiry.

In respect to the title, ‘Neoliberal Gender, Neoliberal Sex’, we particularly welcome submissions that address the relationship between practices of cultural production and models of neoliberal rationality/governmentality.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the relationship between gender, sexuality and neoliberalism in:-

The aesthetics of austerity
Post-feminism
Television/Reality TV
Radio
Cinema
Literature
Contemporary pop music/video
Computer games
News media
Social media and the internet
Artistic practice
Sport and fitness
Pornography
Self-help, Self-motivation
Food Culture
Charity/Fundraising
Comic Books/Graphic Novels

Articles are welcome from academics and graduate students from any academic discipline. We also welcome inter- and multi-disciplinary approaches.

Submissions should follow the Assuming Gender submission guidelines. Deadline for the completed article: Friday, 7^th November 2014.

Submissions and enquiries should be sent to the issue editor, Tom Harman, at gender@cardiff.ac.uk. If you would like to discuss a proposal please contact Tom as soon as possible.

The functioning of the Polish Football Association from the perspective of Michel Foucault’s conception of exclusion (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

24 September 2014

Pezdek, K., Michaluk, T.
The functioning of the Polish Football Association from the perspective of Michel Foucault’s conception of exclusion
(2014) Soccer and Society. Article in Press.

Abstract
One of the management methods used by the Polish Football Association (PZPN) is management through exclusion. Due to such management, the Association constitutes to a considerable degree the status of individuals and institutions with which it enters into relations. As the essential criteria of these relations, the PZPN adopts utilitarian values, legal and business, diminishing the meaning of sport and moral values. From this perspective, the PZPN efficiently conducts the policy of exclusion it has created, dividing and rejecting those people and institutions who are incapable of contributing to the financial success of the Association. It also imposes various prohibitions on everybody who criticizes the workings of the organization or who accuses it of diminishing or even disregarding the interest of Polish football. For this purpose, the PZPN employs its policy of managing knowledge, which to a significant degree can be considered the propaganda of success.

DOI: 10.1080/14660970.2014.919274

Connor J. Cavanagh, Biopolitics, Environmental Change, and Development Studies (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

23 September 2014

Connor J. Cavanagh
Biopolitics, Environmental Change, and Development Studies, Forum for Development Studies, Vol. 41, Iss. 2, 2014, 273-294
https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2014.901243

Abstract
This article proposes a Foucaultian, yet more-than-human, conceptual framework for scholars of both international development and biopolitics in our current historical–geographical conjuncture: the ostensibly nascent Anthropocene. Under these conditions, it is argued that biopower operates across three primary axes: first, between differently ‘racialized’ populations of humans; second, between asymmetrically valued populations of humans and nonhumans; and, third, between humans, our vital support systems, and various types of emergent biosecurity threats. Indeed, one can observe biopower at work in governmental programmes to encourage specific forms of environmental citizenship, or, alternatively, to ensure the conservation of certain ‘charismatic megafauna’ at the expense of marginal human communities. In addition, emerging campaigns to identify and contain both harmful pathogens and their vector species constitute a third axis of human–nonhuman–nonhuman biopolitics, wherein the international community increasingly seeks to eliminate or contain life-forms that threaten both human communities and the ecological systems from which we derive our prosperity. In short, each of these sets of interventions proposes a governmental vision for the forms of life that states and development institutions can and should support, while implicitly approving that others may be ‘let die’. Suggesting that these are the parameters of the empirical problematic with which a properly (bio)political approach to development studies must engage, the article concludes with a further elucidation of these arguments in relation to four ‘sectoral impacts’ of environmental change that the World Bank has recently identified: (i) agriculture, (ii) water resources, (iii) ecosystem services, and (iv) emerging infectious diseases.

Keywords

biopolitics,
development studies,
Foucault,
environmental change,
Anthropocene

Auto-archaeology of Homosexuality: A Foucauldian Reading of the Psychiatric–Industrial Complex (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

22 September 2014

Ragan Fox
Auto-archaeology of Homosexuality: A Foucauldian Reading of the Psychiatric–Industrial Complex, Text and Performance Quarterly, Vol. 34, Iss. 3, 2014, 230-250.

Abstract
This essay explores two primary questions. (1) Can there be a Foucauldian autoethnography? (2) How might a Foucault-driven autoethnography detail my experiences in the psychiatric–industrial complex? Pulling largely from Michel Foucault’s earliest work History of Madness, I look at how interconnected organizations have rendered homosexuality as senseless, used a “psychiatrization of perverse pleasure” to rationalize this senselessness, and relied on expensive psychoanalysis and pharmaceuticals to invoke the madness they claim to cure.

Keywords

Autoethnography,
Foucault,
Homophobia,
Homosexuality,
Psychiatry

DOI: 10.1080/10462937.2014.903429

Governing the souls of young women: exploring the perspectives of mothers on parenting in the age of sexualisation (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

21 September 2014

Chris Howard, Jenny Hallam and Katie Brady, Governing the souls of young women: exploring the perspectives of mothers on parenting in the age of sexualisation, Journal of Gender Studies, Published online: 15 Sep 2014

Full PDF (will expire after 50 clicks)

Abstract

The sexualisation of young women has emerged as a growing concern within contemporary western cultures. This has provoked adult anxieties that young women are growing up too fast by adopting inappropriate sexual practices and subjectivities. Psychological discourses have dominated, which position sexualisation as a corrupting force that infects the ‘true self’ of young women, so they develop in abnormal ways. This in turn allows psychological practices to govern how to parent against sexualisation within families. To explore this further, six mothers each with daughters aged between 8 and 12 took part in one to one semi-structured interviews designed to explore how they conceptualised and parented against the early sexualisation of young women. A Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis was employed, which suggested that the mother’s talk was situated within a psychological discourse. This enabled sexualisation to be positioned as a corrupting force that disrupted the natural development of young women through deviant bodily practices (e.g. consuming sexualised goods), which prevented them from becoming their ‘true self’. Through the disciplinary gaze of psychology, class inequalities were reproduced where working class families were construed as ‘chavs’ who were bad parents and a site of contagion for sexualisation.

DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2014.952714

Colloque International « Foucault et les religions » (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

20 September 2014

Colloque International
« Foucault et les religions »

IRCM – UNIL Lausanne
Avec le soutien de l’Association pour le Centre Michel Foucault.

22, 23, 24 octobre 2014

PDF of flyer and program

La pensée de Michel Foucault est faite de nombreux excursus vers des domaines inédits comme la spiritualité antique, l’histoire du christianisme primitif, l’ascétisme chrétien, les mouvements de contre-conduites, le pouvoir pastoral et plus généralement le rapport entre politique et religion dans la modernité.

L’intérêt qu’il porta tout au long de son parcours à ces questionnements doit nous obliger, trente ans après sa mort, à ouvrir ces dossiers pour essayer d’en comprendre la place dans sa réflexion mais aussi les conceptualisations et les problématisations nouvelles que son travail permet lorsque l’on aborde aujourd’hui la question religieuse.

Quelle est la place actuelle de Foucault dans les champs et les domaines des sciences et de l’histoire des religions ? Ses théories et ses méthodes permettent-elles de renouveler les cadres conceptuels qui président généralement à de telles réflexions ? Voici quelques unes des questions qui seront abordées par les intervenants qui confronteront des approches variées et les enjeux propres à chacune de leurs disciplines.

Comité d’organisation : Jean-François Bert, Nicolas Meylan, Christian Grosse, Silvia Mancini, Philippe Chevallier, Julien Cavagnis

Collectif f71 Le corps utopique (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

19 September 2014

Dates à venir

Samedi 20 septembre vers 15h, dans le cadre d’Un Monument aux Vivants, organisé par le Collectif 12,
première lecture de Mon petit corps utopique, Mantes-la-Jolie (78)

Pour en savoir plus, visitez cette page ou cette page

Les 23 et 25 octobre à 19h et le 24 octobre à 20h30, La Prison,
Théâtre de la Grange de Dorigny – Université de Lausanne (CH)

Pour en savoir plus, visitez cette page ou cette page

Lundi 3 novembre , Le corps utopique, variation pour 2 comédiennes,
Maison d’Arrêt de Fleury-Mérogis (91)

Pour en savoir plus, visitez cette page

Mon petit corps utopique

Après Notre corps utopique, et librement inspiré du même texte de Foucault,
le collectif F71 prépare un spectacle pour tous à partir de 6 ans, Mon petit corps utopique
Création prévue le 23 mars 2015 au Collectif 12, dans le cadre du festival Les Francos

Du 6 au 17 octobre 2014, résidence de création au Collectif 12, Mantes-la-Jolie (78)

Pour en savoir plus, visitez cette page et cette page

Contact

Mélanie Autier, 06 22 13 06 82, production.collectiff71@gmail.com
Christelle Kongolo, 06 15 87 39 64, diffusion.collectiff71@gmail.com
Rejoignez-nous sur notre page facebook, ici

www.collectiff71.com