Foucault News

The Politics of Legality in a Neoliberal Age (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

25 May 2014

The Politics of Legality in a Neoliberal Age

1-2 August 2014

Staff Common Room, Level 2, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales

Building F8. See map

Daniel McLoughlin and Ben Golder are organising a symposium in the Law School on 1-2 August 2014, under the umbrella of the ‘Public Law and Legal Theory Project’ at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. The event is supported both by the Centre and by the Faculty’s workshop support scheme.

The organisers would like to warmly invite all who are interested to attend the event. Registration is free but we do ask that people register their intention to attend by emailing an RSVP to gtcentre@unsw.edu.au with the subject line ‘Neoliberalism Symposium’. Please hurry as spaces are limited!

8.30-9.00: Registration and Collection of Name Badges

9.00-9.30 Welcome and Introduction

Daniel McLoughlin (University of New South Wales)

9.30-10.45 Panel 1: The Political Economy of Neoliberalism

Damien Cahill, ‘Embedded Neoliberalism and its Durability’ (University of Sydney)

Rob Nicholls, ‘And so to Bed: Regulatory Regimes as a Mechanism to Embed Neoliberalism’ (University of New South Wales)

10.45-11.15: Morning Tea

11.15-12.30: Panel 2: Neoliberalism and State Authority

Anna Yeatman, ‘Neoliberalism and the Question of Authority’ (University of Western Sydney)

Chris Butler, ‘State Power under Authoritarian Neoliberalism’ (Griffith University)

12.30-13.30: Lunch

13.30-15.15: Panel 3: Law and Economy in Neoliberal Thought

Jessica Whyte, ‘Governing homo œconomicus: Michel Foucault, Adam Ferguson, and the Providential Logic of Civil Society’ (University of Western Sydney)

Miguel Vatter, ‘Legal Systems and Economic Equilibrium: Hayek vs Becker’ (University of New South Wales)

Paul Patton, ‘Rights, Interests and the Basis of Government’ (University of New South Wales)

15.15-15.45: Afternoon Tea

15.45-17.00: Panel 4: Neoliberal Uses of the Rule of Law

Martin Krygier, ‘Trajectories of the Rule of Law: Pre-liberal, Liberal, Neo-, and Non-’ (University of New South Wales)

Melinda Cooper, ‘Postcolonial Family Law – Economic Liberalization, Rule of Law and the Reinvention of Tradition’ (University of Sydney)

Saturday 2 August 2014

Staff Common Room, Level 2, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales

10.00-11.45: Panel 5: Law and Neoliberalism in the Global South

Fleur Johns, ‘Power Dispersal in the Work of Milton Friedman and in the Mekong River Basin: Nam Theun II and Xayaburi’ (University of New South Wales)

Javier Couso, ‘Constructing “Privatopia”: The Role of Constitutional Law and Courts in Chile’s Radical Neoliberal Experiment’ (Universidad Diego Portales)

Chepal Sherpa, ‘Theorizing Democratic Legality under Neoliberal Capitalism: India’s Neoliberal Project and the Maoist Alternative’ (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

11.45-12.15: Morning Tea

12.15-14.00: Panel 6: Neoliberal Legality Beyond the Nation State

Thomas Biebricher, ‘Understanding the Rise of Juridical Neoliberalism in Europe’ (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

Ntina Tzouvala, ‘Neo-liberalism as Legalism: The Rise of the Judiciary and International Trade Law’ (Durham University)

Jothie Rajah, ‘Neo-liberalism and the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index’ (American Bar Foundation)

14.00-15.00: Lunch

15.00-16.45: Panel 7: Strange Bedfellows? Human Rights and Neoliberalism

Samuel Moyn, ‘A Powerless Companion: Human Rights in the Age of Neoliberalism’ (Harvard)

Zeynep Kivilcim, ‘Articulating Human Rights Discourse in Local Struggles in a Neoliberal Age’ (Istanbul University)

Ben Golder, ‘The Neoliberal Question: Human Rights, Legal Form, and Political Strategy’ (University of New South Wales)

14.45: End

CFP: Historicising Foucault: What does this mean? (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

24 May 2014

Call for papers
Workshop
Historicising Foucault: What does this mean?

6-8 November 2014
University of Zurich, Switzerland

Further info

Michel Foucault figures among the icons of today’s cultural and social sciences. The French philosopher and historian is productively read, quoted, discussed, refuted, and recycled in virtually every cultural and social scientific discipline. Voiced in 1975, Foucault’s invitation that people should help themselves to his works and concepts as if using a toolbox’ (‘make of it what you will’) was so widely taken up that the toolbox has since become standard equipment above all for the work of the cultural sciences. Indeed, the ‘toolbox’ contains an extraordinarily dazzling inventory of concepts, methods, models, sketches, and instruments, and last but not least still proves to be a treasure chest.

But today, thirty years after Foucault’s death, we — the group of editors of the ‘foucaultblog‘ — also face questions regarding the historicisation of this tool box with its instruments whose applicability seems independent of the context of their origins. How did this toolbox that we use actually come about? What does it mean for us today that it originated in the Cold War era in opposition to the ‘hyper-Marxism’ of the New Left, in a certain proximity to structuralism, in the struggle against the French prison system, that it was possibly shaped by commitments to Soviet dissidents, Spanish anarchists, Shiite revolutionaries, or Polish workers and undoubtedly by a fascination with the American counterculture and the Zen culture of Japan, but maybe even influenced by the New Age?? Do all of these ‘contexts’, ‘backgrounds’, and genealogies belong to the Foucauldian toolbox? It can be no other way: Foucault’s thought always and explicitly referred to his present and the poli tical context of his time. But does this not imbue his own concepts and analytical models with an ineluctable historicity? Undoubtedly, and today we should therefore set about writing the genealogy of the Foucauldian toolbox in order to understand it better, to be able to keep using it, but also to bring it up to date and adapt it to today’s scholarly and political situation. And perhaps also to discard some of it.

With such a project in mind, the ‘foucaultblog’ invites all interested scholars to attend a workshop at the University of Zurich on 6-8 November 2014 to discuss the question ‘Historicising Foucault: what does this mean?’ The initial objective will be to locate within a genuine historical context not only the life and work of the author Michel Foucault (1925-1984) but also ‘Foucault’ in his iconic nature and almost ubiquitous presence as a body of interrelated statements that for thirty years has been virulent in the cultural sciences throughout the world. This means interrogating this body of interrelated statements with regard to its specific conditions of possibility, theory formation processes, discursive strategies, and resonance chambers. But it also means taking the claim of historicisation seriously and filling this catchword with life, making the historicisation of Foucault (and ‘Foucault’) the object of one’s own research. We hold the view that such a venture does not by any means require an exclusively historiographical orientation but rather should proceed from all disciplines that work or deal with Foucault. For the new perspective that this can open up is always contemporary in nature: we believe that the historicisation of Foucault’s toolbox opens up new opportunities to think about how this intellectual tool kit can still be used today — or explains why it must perhaps be partially rejected. Work about Foucault is work on Foucault.

Organizational information:

The workshop will take place on 6-8 November 2014 at the University of Zurich.

All interested scholars are invited to send their proposals for papers (abstracts no longer than 500 words) by 30 June 2014 to foucaultblog@fsw.uzh.ch.

The costs of travel and accommodations will be covered for contributors.

The plan is to publish and comment on the workshop contributions on the foucaultblog. The contributors are therefore requested to post brief preliminary versions of their papers on the foucaultblog in advance of the workshops. These will then be provided with commentary, which the contributors can or should address during the workshops. After the conference, the presented papers can be published in full length on the foucaultblog.

Contact: foucaultblog@fsw.uzh.ch

Conference languages: German and English

Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research: The Birth of Modern Happiness (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

23 May 2014

Zevnik, Luka, Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research: The Birth of Modern Happiness, Springer, 2014

Publisher’s page

Explores the concept of modernization as the collective pursuit of happiness
Places the concept of happiness into a historical and cultural context
Analyses the relationship of modern consumer culture with happiness in contemporary western societies

This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the origins of happiness in the modern Western culture and makes the argument that happiness is not universal but is instead a culturally and historically specific experience, characteristic only to the Western world. It begins with an overview of the main research approaches to happiness and then studies the important but elusive theme in the context of culture and relations of power. The second part of the book analyses the social, religious, ethical and political processes that lead to the emergence of the experience of happiness, including consumer culture in contemporary societies. It presents an analysis of the medieval Christian experience which concludes that the modern experience of happiness only emerged in the 17th and 18th century, when the ideal of human existence increasingly started to be pursued in the present life. In its conclusion, this book explores the concept of modernization as the collective pursuit of happiness.

Keywords »Anthropology of Well-Being – Art of Living – Basic Parameters of Happiness – Critical History of Happiness – Cultural Construction of Happiness – Cultural Neuroscience – Culture and Relations – Empirical Happiness Research – Ethnocentrism and Happiness – Eudaimonic Well-Being – Foucault and Happiness – Happiness Studies and Life Satisfaction – Happiness and Consumer Culture – Happiness and Culture – Happiness and Medieval Theology – Happiness and Pastoral Power – Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Happiness – Middle Ages and Happiness – Neoroscience of Happiness – Origins of Happiness in the Western Culture – Positive Timeless Universal Experience – Public and Communal Happiness – Pursuit of Happiness – Sin and Salvation – The Birth of Modern Happiness – Understanding of Happiness

Dr. Luka Zevnik is assistant professor at University of Ljubljana. He is interdisciplinary oriented and has presented conference papers and published on happiness and emotions, popular culture, consumer culture, experience, cultural studies and neuroscience.

CFP: Hellenistic Ethics in Nietzsche and Foucault (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

22 May 2014

Prospects for an Ethics of Self-Cultivation

Conference 1: ‘Hellenistic Ethics in Nietzsche and Foucault’

Date: 25-27 September, 2014

Location: The University of Warwick, UK

PDF of call for papers

1st Call for Abstracts:

Philosophical interest in the ethical ideal of self-cultivation has increased in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as philosophers have sought alternatives to deontological and utilitarian theories. This interest has been most evident in the widespread revival of virtue ethics, although contemporary virtue ethicists tend to focus on Aristotle’s account of character formation. Philosophers in the modern European tradition, however, have been influenced by other views on self-cultivation from the Hellenistic period. Nietzsche’s account of self-cultivation, for instance, is closer to Epicurus’s than Aristotle’s, while Foucault draws extensively on Stoicism and Cynicism for his account. The insights of these thinkers suggest that we may deepen and expand our understanding of self-cultivation by reassessing the merits of the Hellenistic tradition.

Confirmed Speakers

Prof. Keith Ansell-Pearson (Warwick)
Prof. Daniel Conway (Texas A&M)
Dr Edward Harcourt (Oxford)
Prof. Beatrice Han-Pile (Essex)
Dr John Sellars (Birkbeck)
Dr David Webb (Staffordshire)

We welcome papers suitable for 30 minute presentation on self-cultivation in Hellenistic ethics and modern European philosophy. Abstracts of around 500 words suitable for blind review should be sent to selfcultivation@warwick.ac.uk by June 30th 2014. Submissions from graduate students and early-career researchers are especially welcome.

This event will be followed by a second conference hosted by Monash University in 2015 with a separate registration and CFA. To find out more about the research project please visit our webpage: www2.warwick.ac.uk/selfcultivation, and to keep up with future news join our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/selfcultivation2014.

Adult Education Policy and the European Union: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

21 May 2014

Marcella Milana and John Holford (Eds), Adult Education Policy and the European Union: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives. Rotterdam, Sense Publishers, 2014

PDF flyer
website

The European Union is now a key player in making lifelong learning and adult education policy: this is the first book to explore a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives researchers can use to investigate its role. Chapters by leading experts and younger scholars from across Europe and beyond cover the evolution of EU policies, the role of policy ‘actors’ in what is often seen as the ‘black box’ of EU policy-making, and the contribution state theory can make to understanding the EU and its relations with Europe’s nations. They consider what theories of governability – drawing on the work of Foucault – can contribute. And they demonstrate how particular methodological approaches, such as ‘policy trails’, and the contribution the sociology of law, can make. Contributors include both specialists in adult education and scholars exploring how work from other disciplines can contribute to this field.
This is the first book in a new series from the European Society for Research in the Education of Adults, and draws on work within its Network on Policy Studies in Adult Education.

Original language	English
Publication year	2014

Place of publication	Rotterdam
Publisher	Sense Publishers
Number of pages	180
ISBN (print)	978-94-6209-546-5, 978-94-6209-547-2
ISBN (electronic)	978-94-6209-548-9
State	In press

Name	Research on the Education and Learning of Adults
Volume	I

Keywords

adult education, Lifelong learning, policy, research methodologies, European Union

Collectif F71: Le corps utopique (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

20 May 2014

Dates à venir

Vendredi 23 mai à 23h, dans le cadre de La Nuit des idées,
Notre corps utopique, Théâtre national Bordeaux Aquitaine (33)

Pour en savoir plus, visitez cette page ou cette page

Jeudi 19 juin à 19h, Le corps utopique, variation pour 2 comédiennes,
dans le cadre du Colloque International Foucault 1984 – 2014, Université Paris – Est Créteil (94)

Pour en savoir plus, téléchargez le programme

Jeudi 5 juin à 18h, restitution du travail avec les lycéens du lycée Jean Vilar, Plaisir (78), au Collectif 12

Pour en savoir plus, visitez cette page

Le 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, Le petit corps utopique
Création prévue le 23 mars 2015 au Collectif 12, dans le cadre du festival Les Francos

Du 5 mai au 2 juin 2014, résidence de création à l’école Ferdinand Buisson de Mantes-la-Jolie (78) avec le Collectif 12

Lundi 2 juin à 18h, restitution du travail avec les classes de CP et de CM2 au Collectif 12

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

Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984): les arts & les lettres/arts & humanities in the 21st Century (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

19 May 2014

Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984): les arts & les lettres/arts & humanities in the 21st Century

Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies & Collège de France Symposium
L’Institut d’études avancées de Paris
17 quai d’Anjou, Paris 75004
June 12 – 13, 2014

Conference website
PDF flyer

Art and architectural history, visual culture, literary studies, media and film studies and aesthetics have all “partaken” of Foucauldian theories, but a comparative exploration of Foucault’s significance has been lacking. If the reception of Foucault has focused on single disciplines and discrete areas of thought, it has also differed across specific linguistic and/or geo-political lines. This colloquium seeks to map the philosophy of Foucault as it impacts the future of the arts and humanities across cultures, institutions and practices.

Participants

Catherine M. Soussloff,
Art History, Visual Art & Theory, University of British Columbia, Canada

Dana Arnold
Architectural History & Theory, Middlesex University, UK

Sophie Berrebi
Art History, University of Amsterdam

Edward Dimendberg
Film and Media Studies, University of California, Irvine, U.S.A.

Françoise Gaillard
Literary Criticism, Art and Intellectual History, Université de Paris VII

Sima Godfrey
French Literature, University of British Columbia, Canada

Fréderic Gros
Philosophie politique, Université de Paris XII

Anton Lee
Art History, University of British Columbia, Canada

Ilka Kressner
Hispanic and Italian Studies, University at Albany, SUNY

Frédéric Pouillaude
Philosophie de l’art, Université de Paris-Sorbonne

Marisa C. Sánchez
Art History, University of British Columbia, Canada

Ariana Sforzini
Philosophie politique, Université de Paris XII

Michael Sheringham
French Literature, Oxford University, UK

T’ai Smith
Art History, Visual Art & Theory, University of British Columbia, Canada

Elisabetta Villari
DIRAAS, Università degli Studi di Genova

Séminaire “Politiques de Foucault”, 6e séance (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

18 May 2014

Séminaire “Politiques de Foucault”,
6e séance : Luca Paltrinieri, 17 mai 2014, Paris Ouest

webpage

La prochaine séance du séminaire “Politiques de Foucault” accueillera Luca Paltrinieri. Il interviendra sur le thème “’Ou la population ou les classes’ : l’archéologie foucaldienne du débat Marx-Malthus”.

Présentation de la séance :

“Malthus a mis clairement au centre de la réflexion de l’économie politique moderne la question bio-économique de la population. La sienne est une réponse à l’optimisme des Lumières quant aux régulations possibles du rapport entre population et ressources : à la perfectibilité de la nature humaine de Godwin et Condorcet, Malthus oppose l’obstacle de la loi naturelle de population prescrivant le conflit entre croissance géométrique de la population et croissance arithmétique des subsistances. Par le concept de « surpopulation relative », Marx et Engels ont montré en revanche qu’il n’y a pas de loi naturelle qui règle les rapports entre démographie et économie : la loi de population n’est pas une constante qui fait entrer en contradiction deux progressions naturelles, elle est le produit variable de conditions historiques et notamment, dans le capitalisme, de la surexploitation de la force de travail. Ainsi, derrière la « loi naturelle de la population » se cachent des rapports de classe et, selon les mots de Marx « la population est une abstraction si je néglige les classes dont elle se compose ».

Nous partirons de cette critique marxienne de Malthus pour montrer que la perspective de la gouvernementalité foucaldienne en représente quelque part l’archéologie. Se concentrant sur les théories prémalthusiennes, Foucault tente en effet de gagner un autre point de vue sur la question : ni simple « nature », ni artefact idéologique, la population des Lumières est un ensemble de comportements intotalisables, étrange sujet/objet dont la nature politique la situe pourtant en radicale discontinuité par rapport aux théories de la souveraineté. Son émergence manifeste l’avènement d’un régime gouvernemental où la question du pouvoir ne peut plus être posée dans les termes classique de l’obéissance/désobéissance individuelle, mais impose de repenser les conditions même de (re)production d’une collectivité humaine.”

Membre du Collège International de Philosophie, Luca Paltrinieri est directeur du programme De la gestion à l’autogestion. Une généalogie politique de l’entreprise.

Date :
Samedi 17 mai 2014, 10h-12h

Lieu :
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
bâtiment D, salle 04 (rez-de-chaussée)
Comment venir ? par le train et le RER
Plan du campus de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Comité d’organisation :
Philippe Combessie
Stéphane Dufoix
Stéphane Haber
Christian Laval
Christian Lazzeri
Emmanuel Renault

Ann Lazarsfeld-Jensen, A Foucauldian journey into the islands of the deaf and blind (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

18 May 2014

Ann Lazarsfeld-Jensen,
A Foucauldian journey into the islands of the deaf and blind
(2014) Social Identities, Published online March 2014
https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2014.893816

Abstract
This autoethnographic study integrates Foucault’s genealogical approach to explore disability, notably deafness and blindness, from historical, social, and personal perspectives. Disability as a modern institution is defined through nuances of language and silence so that power constructs are hidden and continue to evolve through social collusion. Multiple modern circumlocutions intensify the sense of dislocation, emphasising the difference it attempts to conceal, which makes disability a ripe field for ethnographic work. The two men studied, Blind Brewster and Deaf Brewster, led creative working lives that found a small place in history. Both were sustained by a deep piety. The language used to hide disability in the contemporary world is more destructive than protective, in comparison with the blunt labelling of the deaf and blind two hundred years ago when it was a point of distinction, not discrimination.

Author Keywords
autoethnography; blind; deaf; Foucault; genealogy

Social Involvement: Deconstructing practices relating to the formation of students who work with autistic children in a university service-learning course (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

17 May 2014

Chueh, H.-C., Chen, Y.-T.
Social Involvement: Deconstructing practices relating to the formation of students who work with autistic children in a university service-learning course
(2014) Educational Philosophy and Theory, Published online March 2014

Abstract
Participation in service-learning courses has always been considered a part of the informal education in tertiary education worldwide. Originating from the assumption that service-learning courses increase students’ civic engagement and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, service-learning courses have gradually acquired the status of compulsory courses at universities. This being as it may be, it would seem that the nature of such courses would benefit from further analysis and discussion regarding their function in knowledge reproduction, and their role in teaching and education. The aim of this article is to examine and analyze a university service-learning course-the National Taiwan University (NTU) Star-Rain course with a commitment to serving children with autism-from a Foucaultian perspective, and reflect on how the process of putting knowledge during a service-learning course into practice comes to constitute the subjectivity of students who work with children who are autistic. We argue that the course under investigation has, in effect, become wholly entangled in the medical system’s treatment of autism in Taiwan. The service-learning process involves knowledge acquisition as well as long-term, detailed, concrete hands-on experience, and shapes, in a very complete way, students’ construction of their subject knowledge of autism.

Author Keywords
civic engagement; Foucault; service-learning course; students who work with autism; subjectivity

DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2013.828581