Marie Odile Germain, Michel Foucault: De retour à la BNF, Chroniques de la BNF, no. 70, 2014, pp. 26-27
A report on Foucault’s 37,000 pages of manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris with photos of some of Foucault’s handwritten pages. These manuscripts are now available for consultation in the documents department of the BNF.
With thanks to the Foucaultblog and Progressive Geographies for this news.
Philosophy, Language and the Political – Re-evaluating Post-Structuralism
December 10, 2014 – December 12, 2014
While commemorating this year the death anniversaries of two major philosophers of our times, Michel Foucault (30th) and Jacques Derrida (10th), it is useful for scholars to attempt a reevaluation of the current of thought and academic practice that appeared and flourished in the last four decades of the 20th century, under the label of ‘poststructuralism.’ The trend may be said to have begun with the publication of Gilles Deleuze’s monograph on Nietzsche in 1962. Since then, the decisive philosophical break with the hitherto dominant structuralist current owed itself to other philosophical antecedents in the works of Heidegger, Levinas and Blanchot. Indeed, a sense of the stultification of political thought in Europe both before and immediately after World War II contributed to the emergence of the new philosophical approach. Going beyond the Gramscian and the Althusserian concerns with hegemony and ideology, philosophers resorted, following Nietzsche’s linguistic and genealogical instinct, to a tracing of the discontinuous historical movements of dominant discourses, as well as to an effective critique of their modernising and totalising dimensions. Historically and discursively, fragmentation and multiplicity began to be seen as more real than the totality that many scholars had until then held on to as their major orientation. That totalities could and must open up to infinite multiplicities was one of the main tenets of the poststructuralists. Consequently, in addition to recasting the ‘human sciences,’ they sought to re-envision the aesthetic (especially the literary and the artistic) and the ethical domains, by inducing a much-needed political sensitivity into them. Contextually speaking, for many in India, not the least of the effects of post-structuralism was felt in the forging of postcolonial critiques and movements initiated and pursued by Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Paul Patton, since the early 1980s. And more recently, it is evident that the field of religious studies, has also been impacted by post-structuralism, in bringing in thoughts on a discourse of God, that seek to undermine the pressure of a political theology with its adversely major role in the makeup of our modernity.
In the proposed conference scheduled to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru University on the 10th, 11thand 12th December, 2014, several reputed scholars from different parts of the world, are expected to participate, highlighting the backgrounds and destinies, and the possible merits and achievements of the post-structuralist philosophical movement, as well as address the diverse criticisms that have been levelled against it.
(Coordinators: Saugata Bhaduri, Saitya Brata Das, Franson Manjali, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, JNU.)
CFP: Social Epistemology & Technology: Toward Increasing Public Self-Awareness Regarding Technological Mediation
Editors note: Papers from a foucauldian perspective are invited.
This edited volume seeks to bring together scholars from across disciplines to discuss the social effects of technological mediation, focusing on the normative social dimensions effected by technological mediation of knowledge or the changing conceptions of humans and humanity effected by technological mediation of embodiment. A 500 word abstract is due by Oct. 6th 2014. If selected as a book chapter, then 3,000 to 4,000 words by March 2nd 2015. If selected as a journal article, then 4,000 to 5,000 words by March 2nd 2015. The edited book titled Social Epistemology and Technology: Toward Increasing Public Self-Awareness regarding Technological Mediation will be published by Rowman & Littlefield International as part of the Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society series. The articles will be published by the peer-reviewed online journal Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. The book and articles are expected to be published in July, 2015.
This Detailed Version is organized into the following three sections:
I. Description of the Project
II. Suggested Approaches
III. Design, Deadline & How to Submit a Proposal
I. Description of the Project
An amazing number of new social possibilities have emerged in the 21st century, and technology is a major condition for these possibilities. As part of the Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society series to be published by Rowman & Littlefield International, this is a “call for authors” for the volume titled Social Epistemology and Technology: Toward Increasing Public Self-Awareness regarding Technological Mediation. Because the project developed out of the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (SERRC), this call for authors also involves the possibility of peer-reviewed publication through the SERRC online journal.
In other words, as one of the expressed goals of the book series is to “promote philosophy as a vital, necessary, public activity,” some papers will be accepted for publication in the book volume and some will be accepted for publication in the journal. The idea is then to place the publications into dialog via the online journal “review and reply collective.” Those papers selected for the journal will be encouraged to, at least, partially direct their work toward related content published in the book. This should facilitate collective discussion, since the authors of the book chapters will then have an opportunity to reply. Hereafter, then, “the project” refers to both the book and the journal publications.
“Public self-awareness” in the sub-title of the book points to the two objectives of the project. First, in regard to “analysing normative social dimensions” and “promoting philosophy” the project takes the discussion of issues related to technological mediation of knowledge as an objective. This includes:
(a) concern for “public interest” in knowledge organization and dissemination (e.g. access);
(b) the role of technological mediation regarding the knowledge that co-constitutes, along with the persons themselves, a “human society”;
(c) the role of technological mediation regarding the generally accepted, however vaguely identified, meaning attributed to cities, buildings and spaces in relation to the persons understood as users of such information.
The second objective regards the theme of “exploring changing conceptions of humans and humanity.” For the purposes of the project this may be generally understood as related to issues of technologically augmented subjectivity or genetically, chemically, electronically, or mechanically altered human beings. This includes:
(d) insights gained through discussion of systems-oriented understandings of individuals, and social groups, as multi-voiced bodies;
(e) discussion of the “essence of technology” and “social engineering,” i.e. the role of technological mediation in the destiny of humanity;
(f) concern for the role of technological mediation in the determination of knowledge influencing humans and humanity. Though the technology of a cybernetic culture may increase efficiency and provideinsight into a cybernetic understanding of humanity, it falls to philosophers to discuss whether such “progress” or “enhancement” ultimately leads to a kind of diminished conception of humans and humanity and, thereby, a diminished lived-experience, e.g. a loss regarding agency, the dignity of the person, the sustainability of diversity, or depth in the meaning of embodied experience.
II. Suggested Approaches
Whereas the first objective directly addresses the relation between technology and social epistemology’s “fundamental question,” i.e. how should the pursuit of knowledge be organized, the second objective includes discussions regarding the social constitution of subjectivity.
Some questions which may be addressed include, but are not limited to:
1) What is the nature of technology’s impact on what it means to be human and to be a member of a human society?
2) What is the nature of technology’s impact on the meaning of cities, buildings, and spaces, and, thereby, our knowledge of those spaces and the activities we perform there?
3) How does a notion of “public interest” factor into technological mediation understood as both a product and an instrument of social power? I.e. how do the constraints of technological mediation relate to the possibility of “public self-awareness,” especially in the relation to information organized and disseminated for public consumption through technology?
4) How does the technology which allows for access to knowledge influence/limit the character of that knowledge? E.g. the sources of evidence used in making choices; the kinds of epistemic outcomes, purposes, or norms used in the evaluations.
5) How are we to understand the type of agent, or system, who makes knowledge-based choices or selections? E.g. whereas traditionally epistemology conceives of epistemic agents as individuals, the point of departure for social epistemology may best be characterized as “systems.” Of course social epistemology may also consider individuals; however, in doing so the individual is often understood as a constituent of, or participant in, multiple systems, and thereby may also be characterized as a system (cf. a multi-voiced body).
The following resources may provide further context for potential authors: http://social-epistemology.com/collective-vision/; Steve Fuller’s seminal Social Epistemology (1988); Talcott Parson’s Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory (1977); Robert Romanyshyn’s Technology as Symptom and Dream (1989); Andy Clark’s Natural-Born Cyborgs (2004); Ralph Schroeder’s Rethinking Science, Technology, and Social Change (2007); Fred Evans’ The Multivoiced Body (2008); the Claire Brossard and Barnard Reber edited Digital Cognitive Technologies: Epistemology and Knowledge Society (2010); Alvin Goldman’s “A Guide to Social Epistemology” (2012); the Ulrik Ekman edited Throughout: Art and Culture Emerging with Ubiquitous Computing (2013). Other authors of interest may include Martin Heidegger on Technology; Jacques Ellul on Technology; Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man; Michel Foucault’s genealogical project.
III. Design, Deadline & How to Submit a Proposal
The project may include up to 40 publications (up to 20 to the book and up to 20 to the journal) to be written in a style conducive to discussion and public accessibility. This means the chapters of the book will be short, i.e. between 3,000 and 4,000 words including references, and the peer-reviewed online journal articles may be between 4,000 and 5,000 words including references. The exact design for the book chapter authors’ responses to journal authors is to be determined. That is, the responses may take the form of “reply comments” on the SERRC website, or in the case of a SERRC online journal published short “critical reply” the word length will be 2,000 to 3,000 words.
To be considered for inclusion in the project, please submit an abstract of approximately 500 words explaining the nature of your proposed contribution and its relation to the above social epistemology-related objectives of the project. The deadline for consideration in the project is October 6th 2014, 8:00am (Central Time Zone).
Please submit proposals, and direct all correspondence regarding the project, to: fscalambrino@udallas.edu
Frank Scalambrino, Ph.D.
Philosophy Department
University of Dallas, USA
https://udallas.academia.edu/FrankScalambrino
You will receive confirmation upon receipt of your submission, and the final decision regarding which authors will be included in the project will be made by November 3rd 2014. After Nov. 3rd authors selected for the journal will receive the relevant anonymous abstracts from book chapter authors. All authors will then have four (4) months to submit a first draft. Including the subsequent editing requests and resubmit process, final drafts should be submitted no later than July 15th 2015. The publication of the journal articles will coincide with the publication of the book, at which time the reply process will be determined.
Peter C. O’Brien, Performance Government: Activating and regulating the self-governing capacities of teachers and school leaders, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Published online: 04 Jul 2014
DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2014.930682
Abstract
This article analyses ‘performance government’ as an emergent form of rule in advanced liberal democracies. It discloses how teachers and school leaders in Australia are being governed by the practices of performance government which centre on the recently established Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) and are given direction by two major strategies implicit within the exercise of this form of power: activation and regulation. Through an ‘analytics of government’ of these practices, the article unravels the new configurations of corporatized expert and academic knowledge—and their attendant methods of application—by which the self-governing capacities of teachers and school leaders are being activated and regulated in ways that seek to optimize the performance of these professionals. The article concludes by outlining some of the dangers of performance government for the professional freedom of educators and school leaders.
Keywords
governmentality,
performance government,
liberalism,
professional standards,
professional learning
Emily Horne and Tim Maly, The Inspection House: An Impertinent Field Guide to Modern Surveillance, Coach House Books, September 2014.
Note also: Sept 21 | Emily Horne & The Inspection House at Word on the Street – Toronto
In 1787, British philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham conceived of the panopticon, a ring of cells observed by a central watchtower, as a labor-saving device for those in authority. While Bentham’s design was ostensibly for a prison, he believed that any number of places that require supervision—factories, poorhouses, hospitals, and schools—would benefit from such a design. The French philosopher Michel Foucault took Bentham at his word. In his groundbreaking 1975 study, Discipline and Punish, the panopticon became a metaphor to describe the creeping effects of personalized surveillance as a means for ever-finer mechanisms of control.
Forty years later, the available tools of scrutiny, supervision, and discipline are far more capable and insidious than Foucault dreamed, and yet less effective than Bentham hoped. Shopping malls, container ports, terrorist holding cells, and social networks all bristle with cameras, sensors, and trackers. But, crucially, they are also rife with resistance and prime opportunities for revolution. The Inspection House is a tour through several of these sites—from Guantánamo Bay to the Occupy Oakland camp and the authors’ own mobile devices—providing a stark, vivid portrait of our contemporary surveillance state and its opponents.
Some of Foucault’s collaborative projects are well-known – the I, Pierre Rivière collection; the Herculine Barbin memoir; Le désordre des familles with Arlette Farge; and the posthumous Technologies of the Self volume from the seminar at the University of Vermont.
On a dedicated page on this site I have listed the bibliographic details of other collaborative projects Foucault was involved with – either as contributor, research team leader or enabler. Comments, corrections or additions welcome.
Silcock, M., Hocking, C., Payne, D.
Childhood constructions of contemporary technology: Using discourse analysis to understand the creation of occupational possibilities
(2014) Journal of Occupational Science, 21 (3), pp. 357-370.
Abstract
Ten children aged 10-12 years were audio recorded discussing and demonstrating the types of technology they regularly used at home. A critical discourse analysis of the transcriptions was completed to identify dominant discourses the children deployed. Philosopher Michel Foucault’s theories on the history of existence, power relations, the subject, and ethics of the self informed the analysis. Three discourses were identified: virtual reality as a new dimension, panoptic play, and technological play as risky. The children appeared to assume subject positions within their play that have been created by and through their technology use. These subject positions were created by the unique historical context of the present era and have allowed new relations of power to develop for children. The discourses and associated discursive constructions appear to have an effect on the occupational possibilities available to children at this life course stage, indicating the emergence of norms of behaviour and relations of power unique to technological play.
Author Keywords
Children; Discourse analysis; Foucault; Occupational possibilities; Technological play
After what has felt like a long break from working on this book, I’ve begun writing again. Some of this was during a recent trip to Ghana.
The first part of Chapter Six looks at the collaborative projects Foucault was involved with through his Collège de France seminars and his involvement with CERFI in the 1970s. I discuss four projects. The first was work conducted at CERFI, also involving Deleuze and Guattari, on into urban infrastructure and related themes, which led to the book Les équipements du pouvoir by Lion Murard and François Fourquet. The second is the collective work Les machines à guérir (aux origines de l’hôpital moderne) published in 1976 and then reissued in 1979. The third is a study Foucault edited entitled Politiques de l’habitat (1800-1850) from 1977. The fourth is a study of the ‘green spaces’ of Paris. These projects are important, I think, for moving…
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The Groningen Lectures on Modes of Reasoning – The Courage of Truth -Part I
Opening Lecture by Prof. Michael Dillon, 25 Sept. 2013
The Groningen Lectures on Modes of Reasoning are a space for world leading intellectuals to reflect on historical and contemporary modes of reasoning order and power. Speakers are invited to address the topic from their own area of expertise and to engage with questions from a selected audience. Lectures are held annually. A programme can be found here
With thanks to Eugene Wolter’s post on Critical Theory for his post on this.
Edward Said, My Encounter with Sartre, London Review of Books, Vol. 22 No. 11 · 1 June 2000
It was early in January 1979, and I was at home in New York preparing for one of my classes. The doorbell announced the delivery of a telegram and as I tore it open I noticed with interest that it was from Paris. ‘You are invited by Les Temps modernes to attend a seminar on peace in the Middle East in Paris on 13 and 14 March this year. Please respond. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre.’ […]
When I arrived, I found a short, mysterious letter from Sartre and Beauvoir waiting for me at the hotel I had booked in the Latin Quarter. ‘For security reasons,’ the message ran, ‘the meetings will be held at the home of Michel Foucault.’ […]
Foucault very quickly made it clear to me that he had nothing to contribute to the seminar and would be leaving directly for his daily bout of research at the Bibliothèque Nationale. I was pleased to see my book Beginnings on his bookshelves, which were brimming with a neatly arranged mass of materials, including papers and journals. Although we chatted together amiably it wasn’t until much later (in fact almost a decade after his death in 1984) that I got some idea why he had been so unwilling to say anything to me about Middle Eastern politics.[…]
Foucault News 