Foucault News

David R. Howarth, Poststructuralism and After: Structure, Subjectivity and Power (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

3 January 2014

David R. Howarth, Poststructuralism and After: Structure, Subjectivity and Power
Palgrave Macmillan, October 2013
ISBN: 978-1-137-26697-2, ISBN10: 1-137-26697-X

Poststructuralism and After provides a comprehensive, innovative and lucid account of contemporary poststructuralist theory, which probes its limits, explores rival theoretical approaches, and elaborates new concepts and logics. The book distils and articulates the basic philosophical assumptions and theoretical concepts of poststructuralism, but by building upon the work of Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, Lacan, Laclau, Lévi–Strauss, Marx, Saussure and Žižek it also provides a distinctive version of the poststructuralist project.

The philosophy and theory of poststructuralism is presented through a critical engagement with the central problems of social and political theory. Such problems include the structure/agency dilemma; the problem of social order; the ongoing debates between positivists, interpretivists and realists about the role and character of social science; the relationship between the economy, the state and society; the complexities of identity/difference; and the role of power, domination and ideology. Empirical illustrations and case studies of selected social phenomena further illuminate the theoretical arguments displayed in this book.

David R. Howarth is Reader in Social and Political Theory at the University of Essex, UK. His publications include Discourse, Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory (with Jason Glynos), and The Politics of Airport Expansion in the UK (with Steven Griggs).

With thanks to the Critical Theory blog for this item

Explaining the failure of an obesity intervention: Combining Bourdieu’s symbolic violence and the Foucault’s microphysics of power to reconsider state interventions (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

2 January 2014

Wachs, F.L., Chase, L.F.
Explaining the failure of an obesity intervention: Combining Bourdieu’s symbolic violence and the Foucault’s microphysics of power to reconsider state interventions (2013) Sociology of Sport Journal, 30 (2), pp. 111-131.

Full pdf

Abstract
This paper explains the failure of an obesity intervention funded by a Carol M. White U.S. Department of Education grant which created a three way partnership between middle schools in a poor largely Latino school district, the local University, and local after school care providers. This paper assesses the project and situates it theoretically using Foucault’s microphysics of power and Bourdieu’s concepts of capital to analyze the refusal of most students and teachers to engage in the program and the standardized testing required by the state. We further articulate a new form of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence based on position in the consumer hierarchy. We conclude with a critique of grant mechanisms as a means of addressing health issues, and situate the obesity epidemic as a social construction that perpetuates inequality and discourses of power.

From Biopower to Infopower?: A Genealogy of One Aspect of Contemporary Politics

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

1 January 2014

Colin Koopman, From Biopower to Infopower?: A Genealogy of One Aspect of Contemporary Politics

Text on youtube
Colin Koopman, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon, spoke at Oregon State University on December 3rd, 2013. A wide number of contemporary political assemblages from mass surveillance to finance capitalism to big data suggest that we may be in the midst of new political conditions. Some have sought to conceptualize these assemblages in such terms as “the information society” or “new media culture” while others would amalgamate them as part of a hybrid beast named “neoliberalism”.

In his presentation, Koopman here argues for a different conceptualization of what is at stake for us today politically. His analysis is Foucaultian in that it focuses attention away from state capacities and institutional formations toward the problems internal to emergent modes of power (or the conduct of conduct). Building off of Michel Foucault’s analyses of biopower and adopting a methodological approach grounded in genealogy, Koopman calls for a new concept entitled infopower (specifying the intersection between information and power).

Colin Koopman is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. His research is primarily in, through, and on the philosophical traditions of Pragmatism and Genealogy, with an eye toward using these distinctive approaches to engage current issues in Political Philosophy broadly-construed.

With thanks to Dirk Felleman for this item

Alberto Fragio, Blumenberg y Foucault: el análisid del poder pastoral como un ensayo de metaforología política (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

31 December 2013

Alberto Fragio, Blumenberg y Foucault: El análisid del poder pastoral como un ensayo de metaforología política, Universitas Philosophica. 2013, vol.30, n.60, pp. 83-98. ISSN 0120-5323.

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Resumen
En el verano de 1960 Foucault hubo de escribir a Blumenbergcon motivo de la organización de una conferencia en laUniversidad de Hamburgo a cargo de Maurice de Gandillac.La conferencia no llegó a realizarse y el encuentro entreFoucault y Blumenberg resultó fallido. A la historia de estefallido encuentro, se vendría a sumar el mutuo desinterés por sus respectivas obras. Por lo que parece, Foucault desconocióo no llegó a interesarse por los trabajos de Blumenberg,tampoco Blumenberg por los de Foucault. Pero hay unaspecto clave en el que las obras de ambos autores podríancomplementarse a título póstumo: en el programa de una“metaforología política”. En este artículo abordamos la quequizá sea la máxima convergencia intelectual entre las obrasde Blumenberg y Foucault: una metaforología del poder.

Palabras clave: Estado moderno, gubernamentalidad, poder pastoral, Edipo, metaforología de la verdad

Alberto Fragio, Blumenberg and Foucault: the analysis of the pastoral power as an essay of political metaphorology

Abstract
In the summer of 1960 Foucault wrote to Blumenberg concerning the organization of a conference by Maurice de Gandillac at the University of Hamburg. The conference was not held and Foucault and Blumenberg did not meet. Additionally to this failed encounter, Foucault ignored or was not interested in Blumenberg’s works, nor Blumenberg in Foucault’s works. But there is a main aspect in which the thought of both authors could posthumously be complemented: in a “political metaphorology”. In this paper I deal on what is perhaps the highest intellectual convergence between Blumenberg’s and Foucault’s works, that is to say, a metaphorology of power.

Keywords : Modern State; governmentality; pastoral power; Oedipus; metaphorology of truth.

Antoine Garapon, Michel Foucault, visionnaire du droit contemporain (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

30 December 2013

Antoine Garapon, Michel Foucault, visionnaire du droit contemporain, Raisons politiques, 2013/4 (N° 52), pp. 39-49
https://doi.org/10.3917/rai.052.0039

Garapon, A. (2013). Michel Foucault: Visionary Insight Into Contemporary Law. Raisons politiques, No 52(4), 39-49.
https://doi.org/10.3917/rai.052.0039.

Résumé
Cet article analyse les mutations contemporaines du droit. Il constate une évolution paradoxaledes pratiques juridiques néolibérales « à l’ombre du droit » : une tendance à chercher une solution aux controverses juridiques en dehors des tribunaux, à travers des modalités d’accord et de compensation. L’application de la loi est perçue comme une menace et un danger (notamment sur le plan économique), plutôt que comme une garantie de protection. Une nouvelle forme de subjectivité juridique comme capacité immédiate de calcul et de négociation se substitue progressivement au sujet titulaire de droits et de libertés inaliénables, exposant pourtant les individus et les entreprises au risque de subir des pressions les incitant à renoncer à défendre leurs droits, au nom même de leur intérêt.

Antoine Garapon est magistrat, docteur en droit, secrétaire général de l’Institut des Hautes Études sur la Justice et ancien juge des enfants. Il est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages consacrés au droit et à la justice, dont : Peut-on réparer l’histoire ? Colonisation, esclavage, Shoah (Paris, Odile Jacob, 2008) ; La raison du moindre État. Le néolibéralisme et la justice (Paris, Odile Jacob, 2010) ; Bien juger. Essai sur le rituel judiciaire (Paris, Odile Jacob, 2010). Il anime l’émission radiophonique « Le bien commun » sur France Culture, et dirige la collection Le bien commun aux Éditions Michalon. Il est également membre du comité de rédaction de la revue de philosophie Esprit.

Michel Foucault: a visionary insight into contemporary law
This article focuses on the contemporary transformations of the field of law. It underlines a paradox in the evolution of neoliberal juridical practices, which take more and more place “in the shadow of the law”. A tendency arises to try to find a solution to legal controversies outside the law courts, by means of agreements and compensations. Law enforcement actions are perceived as a danger (especially in an economic sense) and not as a guarantee of protection. A new form of juridical subjectivity as immediate capacity of calculating and negotiating is gradually replacing the subject of inalienable rights and freedoms. But this process risks putting pressure on individuals and enterprises to give up their rights in the name of their own interest.

PLAN DE L’ARTICLE

1. Le droit de la sortie du droit
Des droits fondamentaux à un armement des sujets
De l’observation d’une règle à une coopération avec l’autorité
Un sujet unidimensionnel
2. Un droit « connecté » à l’économie
3. Un droit praticable
Des pratiques sans législateur ?

Biopolitics, Governmentality, (Security) Dispositifs. Concepts for the Study of the International? Conference (2014)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

29 December 2013

Biopolitique, Gouvernementalité, Dispositifs (de sécurité). Concepts pour l’étude de l’International?
Conférence internationale

Biopolitics, Governmentality, (security) Dispositifs. Concepts for the Study of the International?
International Conference

PDF of program in English
PDF en français
Website

Co-organisée par l’Association pour le Centre Michel Foucault, le Centre d’études et de recherches internationales
Avec le soutien de l’IRI/PUC-Rio (Brasil),le Centre d’études sur les conflits, le Centre des Amériques de Sciences Po

Responsabilité scientifique
Didier Bigo (CERI-Sciences Po Paris) Philippe Bonditti (IRI/PUC-Rio) Frédéric Gros (UPEC)

Langues de travail
Anglais et français, French and English

13 et 14 janvier 2014

Association pour le Centre Michel Foucault
[Editor: Link updated 17 April 2026 to page archived on the Wayback Machine]

CERI/Sciences Po
56, rue Jacob, 75006 Paris
Grande Salle de Conférence

In 1997, in Paris, the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (CERI) hosted a conference entitled Pratiques politiques et usages de Michel Foucault (Political practices and uses of Michel Foucault). Without saying that this conference initiated a new partition of the « foucaldian legacy » approaches, it seems, nevertheless, that it contributed to establish a division, still visible today among the vast movement of appropriation of the work of Michel Foucault, between commentators and users. The originality of the 1997 conference lies in the fact that it tried not to be an(other) event on or about Michel Foucault, his path, his « legacy », his work. The ambition of the conference organizers was to break with a certain tradition of the commentary of Foucault’s thought and opt for an effort of practical application of his « historico-critical » approach. The issue, then, was not an exegetic effort on Foucault’s work but, rather, to put his thought « into practice » in order to « better understand the contemporary phenomena, inseparably intellectual, social and political » ; an ambition transposed in the title of the conference and maybe even more in the title of the edited volume that come out of it : Penser avec Michel Foucault (Think with Michel Foucault). Along that same approach, the CERI also hosted the conference « Monitoring the future in security and life sciences » on April 2009 with members of the CERI and the BIOS Center at the LSE together with « specialists » of Michel Foucault’s work. Sixteen years after the first event and four after the second one, the conference we are organizing on « Biopolitics, governemnentality, security dispositifs. Concepts for the study of the International?» wishes to revive the move initiated in 1997 and extend it. The conference will seek to seize Foucault via his many uses to question the practical reasons of his philosophical silence about the « International » and this domain of knowledge we came to call « international studies » or the « discipline of International Relations » (IR).

Stuart Elden, Foucault’s La société punitive – some initial thoughts on the first half (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

28 December 2013

Progressive Geographies

I received Foucault’s La société punitive last week, and it was the only academic book I took with me on my Christmas trip to Ghana. As with these lecture courses generally I know I will read them several times, so I’m half-way through a first fairly quick read. I use the initial read to get an overall sense of the trajectory of the course and how it sits in relation to the courses that preceded it and those to come. In this instance the course immediately preceding it – Théories et institutions pénales – is not published, but Psychiatric Power and The Abnormals, which follow, have been available for some time.

I will be writing a review of this course for Berfrois, and there will be some discussion of it in Chapter One of my Foucault’s Last Decade book, so I will be returning to this text…

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Stuart Elden, Foucault’s La société punitive – some additional thoughts on the second half (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

28 December 2013

Progressive Geographies

Following my thoughts on the first half, here are some additional comments on the second half of Foucault’s 1973 lecture course La société punitive. As mentioned, I’ll be writing a much more formal and thorough review for Berfrois.

– Harcourt’s notes suggest that this course should be seen as developing the productive side of penalty, as opposed to the more repressive side analysed in the previous course Théories et institutions pénales. But as he suggests it is more than this – it broadens the analysis as well as complements the previous course, looking at the emergence of a new kind of power: disciplinary power. In fact, it appears that Foucault half-wishes that ‘the disciplinary society’ had been the title for the course – Daniel Defert has suggested that that was indeed the original title.

– the course really needs to be seen as a third of…

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Peter Sloterdijk, Philosophical Temperaments: From Plato to Foucault (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

27 December 2013

Peter Sloterdijk, Philosophical Temperaments: From Plato to Foucault, Translated by Thomas Dunlap with a foreword by Creston Davis. Columbia University Press, 2013

Publisher’s page

Peter Sloterdijk turns his keen eye to the history of western thought, conducting colorful readings of the lives and ideas of the world’s most influential intellectuals. Featuring nineteen vignettes rich in personal characterizations and theoretical analysis, Sloterdijk’s companionable volume casts the development of philosophical thinking not as a buildup of compelling books and arguments but as a lifelong, intimate struggle with intellectual and spiritual movements, filled with as many pitfalls and derailments as transcendent breakthroughs.

Sloterdijk delves into the work and times of Aristotle, Augustine, Bruno, Descartes, Foucault, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl, Kant, Kierkegaard, Leibniz, Marx, Nietzsche, Pascal, Plato, Sartre, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Wittgenstein. He provocatively juxtaposes Plato against shamanism and Marx against Gnosticism, revealing both the vital external influences shaping these intellectuals’ thought and the excitement and wonder generated by the application of their thinking in the real world. The philosophical “temperament” as conceived by Sloterdijk represents the uniquely creative encounter between the mind and a diverse array of cultures. It marks these philosophers’ singular achievements and the special dynamic at play in philosophy as a whole. Creston Davis’s introduction details Sloterdijk’s own temperament, surveying the celebrated thinker’s intellectual context, rhetorical style, and philosophical persona.

About the Author

Peter Sloterdijk is professor of aesthetics and philosophy at the Institute of Design in Karlsruhe and teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His numerous works include The Art of Philosophy: Wisdom as a Practice; Rage and Time: A Psychopolitical Investigation; and the best-selling Critique of Cynical Reason.

Thomas Dunlap is also the translator of Wolfgang Benz’s A Concise History of the Third Reich and Michael Stolleis’s A History of Public Law in Germany, 1914–1945.

Creston Davis is professor of philosophy at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities in Skopje, Macedonia.

Christmas Foucault (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

25 December 2013

Best wishes for the festive season from Foucault News! I claim no responsibility for this dubious representation of Foucault found on the blingee site