Foucault News

Foucault quote: Thought and criticism

Clare O'Farrell

15 June 2024

Thought does exist, both beyond and underneath systems and edifices of discourse. It is something that is often hidden but always drives everyday behaviors. There is always a little thought occurring even in the most stupid institutions; there is always thought even in silent habits.

Criticism consists in uncovering that thought and trying to change it: showing that things are not as obvious as people believe, making it so that what is taken for granted is no longer taken for granted. To practice criticism is to make harder those acts which are now too easy… [A]s soon as people begin to no longer be able to think things the way they have been thinking them, transformation becomes at the same time very urgent, very difficult and entirely possible. (trans. mod)

Michel Foucault, (1981) [2000] “So is it important to think?” in In J. Faubion, ed., Power Translated by Robert Hurley, New York: New Press, 2000, pp. 456-7.

Thomas Nail, The Philosophy of Movement. An Introduction (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

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12 June 2024

Thomas Nail, The Philosophy of Movement. An Introduction, University of Minnesota Press, 2024
Foreword by Daniel W. Smith

Why are city dwellers worldwide walking on average ten percent faster than they were a decade ago? Why are newcomer immigrant groups so often maligned when migration has always constituted civilization? To analyze and understand the depth of the reasons, Thomas Nail suggests that it serves us well to turn to a philosophy of movement. Synthesizing and extending many years of his influential work, The Philosophy of Movement is a comprehensive argument for how motion is the primary force in human and natural history.

Nail critiques the bias toward stasis at the core of Western thought, asking what a philosophy that began with the primacy of movement would look like. Interrogating the consequences of movement throughout history and in daily life in the twenty-first century, he draws connections and traces patterns between scales of reality, periods of history, and fields of knowledge. In our age of rapid movements shaped by accelerating climate change and ensuing mass global migration, as well as ubiquitous digital media, Nail provides a contemporary philosophy that helps us understand how we got here and how to grapple with these interlocking challenges.

With a foreword by philosopher Daniel W. Smith, The Philosophy of Movement: An Introduction is a must-read for scholars and students not only of philosophy but also history, anthropology, science and technology studies, mobility studies, and other fields across the humanities and social sciences.

Thomas Nail is distinguished scholar and professor of philosophy at the University of Denver. He is author of Matter and Motion: A Brief History of Kinetic Materialism; Lucretius III: A History of Motion; Theory of the Object; and Being and Motion.

Daniel W. Smith is professor of philosophy at Purdue University. He has translated, from French, books by Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Klossowski, Isabelle Stengers, and Michel Serres.

Colóquio Foucault Presente 40+ (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

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11 June 2024

O Colóquio Foucault Presente 40+ acontecerá para celebrar a vida e a obra de um dos maiores intelectuais do Séc. XX. Na perspectiva de como a filosofia foucaultiana demanda uma análise do presente, o Colóquio tem por objetivo refletir e debater as possibilidades e os sentidos de seu legado, segundo alguns usos conceituais e metodológicos que seu pensamento emplacou séculos XX e XXI adentro. O colóquio está organizado sob a forma de mesas-redondas e 5 Grupos de Trabalhos Temáticos cujos resumos serão selecionados.

Instagram link

Qualquer dúvida encaminhar e-mail:
foucault40mais@gmail.com

Gjerde, Lars Erik Løvaas. “Biopolitical Leviathan: Understanding State Power in the Era of COVID-19 through the Weberian-Foucauldian Theory of the State” (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

9 June 2024

Gjerde, Lars Erik Løvaas. “Biopolitical Leviathan: Understanding State Power in the Era of COVID-19 through the Weberian-Foucauldian Theory of the State”, Theoria 71, 178 (2024): 48-74,
https://doi.org/10.3167/th.2024.7117803

Abstract
The coronavirus pandemic made the biopolitics of infection control the core object of states around the world. Globally, states governed spheres usually free of state control, implementing various restrictions, closing down society in the process. This is possible due to the state’s capacities to act through and over society, grounded in the state’s powers. I argue that while the pandemic has led to useful and interesting state-centric Foucauldian literature on the politics of COVID-19, this literature has not fully taken the theoretical lessons of the pandemic into account. Explicating these lessons, I discuss how the pandemic invites us to reconsider the Foucauldian approach to the state. The purpose of this article is to combine the Foucauldian theory of power with a Weberian state theory based on Michael Mann’s work on the state and the sources of power, so to lay the foundations for a Weberian-Foucauldian theory of the state.

Keywords:
autonomous power; biopolitics; coronavirus; Foucault; lockdown; Mann

Bannikov, K.V., Radina, N.K. Biopolitical media discourse in France in the COVID-19 pandemics (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

8 June 2024

Bannikov, K.V., Radina, N.K.
Biopolitical media discourse in France in the COVID-19 pandemics
(2023) RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism, 28 (3), pp. 553-565.

DOI: 10.22363/2312-9220-2023-28-3-553-565

Abstract
The publication activities of the French media during the COVID-19 pandemic in a biopolitical way are analyzed. The theoretical frame of the study is set by Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, as well as the propaganda model of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. To collect and analyze empirical data, the methods of computational linguistics and the method of identifying contextual ideologemes were applied. The research materials were the texts of independent media (Le Figaro, Le Monde, Le Parisien), identified using the keywords “pandemic” and “COVID-19” during the four waves of the pandemic (from January 2020 to March 2022). A total of 29,584 Le Figaro articles, 22,446 Le Monde articles, and 6,402 Le Parisien articles were used in the research. The purpose of the research is to analyze the strategies for including the French media in the biopolitical practices of propaganda and public education on the example of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result of the research, it turned out that the studied media during the pandemic were integrated both into general information campaigns and into biopolitical education and propaganda campaigns. Two scenarios for organizing media discourse during the pandemic of COVID-19 were identified, determined by target groups and media tasks. The first scenario actively involves educational and propaganda tools to promote state biopolitical goals. The second scenario integrates informing readers about the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures used by the authorities for biopolitical control, with the presentation of the hierarchies of responsible persons/ institutions (within the state biopolitics). It is concluded that the participation of French independent media in the active promotion of biopolitical programs indicates their close connection with the actors and subjects of biopolitics – the state or business representatives. Copyright by the Author(s), 2023.

Author Keywords
biopolitics; ideologeme; Le Figaro; Le Monde; Le Parisien; propaganda

Martin Stokes, Music and Citizenship (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

5 June 2024

Martin Stokes, Music and Citizenship, Oxford University Press, 2023

Critical citizenship practices and the language of today’s populism have never been more sharply opposed. Today’s insistent efforts to anchor citizenship narratives in national belonging now confront a variety of ‘flexible’ or ‘differentiated’ citizenships – plural, performative, and decentered practices of rights claiming mutually defining ‘the political’, its subjects, and its others on a variety of scales. They confront, too, critiques of citizenship in totalitarian or neoliberal governmentality that derive from Foucault, Agamben, and Arendt and have become pressing today in proliferating states of emergency and exception and the growing ranks of non-citizens. How should these debates be configured now? And what place does music have in them?

In Music and Citizenship, author Martin Stokes argues that music has for a long time been entangled with debates about citizenship and citizenly identities, though for various reasons this entanglement has been insufficiently recognized. Citizenship and citizenly identity debates, for their part, have important implications for the way we think about music in relation to politics, identity, and scholarly practice. Stokes’s particular claim is that ethnomusicology has for too long configured relationships between music, society, and reflective and critical practice in terms of identity paradigms. The rejection of these identity paradigms in recent years has taken the form of a post- or anti-humanism that is equally problematic. This book challenges the conventional understanding of citizenship in terms of nationalism and national identity though the examination of case studies from across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

In this way, this volume departs from an earlier ethnomusicology preoccupied with belonging and cultural participation in the nation-state. Citizenship-the fantasy, according to some definitions, of political community without outsiders-suggests, in this book, a different space in which one might configure such relations, one more satisfactorily, and energetically, oriented to questions about musical ecology, sustainability, democracy, and inclusivity.

Offers the first comprehensive review of the relationship between citizenship and ethnomusicology
Presents a new understanding of music and politics in the context of today’s debates about political belonging in an age of authoritarianism, failed states, and climate emergency
Features case studies based on new research of music and political crises in Egypt, Turkey, and United Kingdom

Paul Allen Miller (ed), Truth in the Late Foucault Antiquity, Sexuality, and Psychoanalysis (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

3 June 2024

Truth in the Late Foucault. Antiquity, Sexuality, and Psychoanalysis
Paul Allen Miller (Anthology Editor), Bloomsbury, 2024

Description

The first full treatment of truth as a core philosophical concept in the late Foucault, this volume examines his work on the ancient world and the early church. Each essay features a deep examination as to how the topics of truth and sexuality intersect with and focus on Foucault’s engagement with ancient philosophy and thought. Truth in the Late Foucault offers readings on Plato, Artemidorus, Cicero, Sophocles and the Stoics, and pays close attention to Cassian, Paulinus of Nola, and early Christian practices of confession.

With the publication of the long-awaited volume 4 of the History of Sexuality: Confessions of the Flesh, the shape of the final Foucault is now brought into stark relief. As well as looking at ancient thought, the contributors explore Foucault’s work in relation to philosophers such as Gadamer, Heidegger, Derrida and Descartes. Foucault’s long-running and often contentious dialogue with psychoanalysis, on the relation between truth and the subject, is also examined. Each essay not only makes an important statement, but also is part of an interconnected arc of topics and understanding, covering both the ancient and modern periods. This book reveals that Foucault’s concern with antiquity raises questions deeply pertinent to the present moment.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Truth, Dreams, and Psychoanalysis in the Late Foucault, Paul Allen Miller (University of South Carolina, USA)

1. On Dreams, Truth, and the Aesthetics of Existence, Edward McGushin (Stonehill College, USA)

2. Foucault in the Cave with Gadamer: On Truth, Understanding, and Experience, Arash Shokrisarari (Cornell University, USA)

3. Nothing to Do with the Truth? New Reflections on Foucault’s Reading of Artemidorus, Sandra Boehringer (University of Strasbourg, France)

4. To Dream the Impossible Dream: Parrhesia and Rhetoric, (De Oratore 3), Paul Allen Miller (University of South Carolina, USA)

5. From True Confessions to True Discourse in the Late Foucault, Niki Kasumi Clements (Rice University, USA)

6. Confessing in Communities: The Genealogical Exclusion of Joy from Late Antique Christianity, Alex Dressler (University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA)

7. Artemidorus as Symptom: Freud and Foucault, Richard H. Armstrong (University of Houston, USA)

8. The Desiring Subject Seeks Pleasure in History: Li Yinhe’s Sadomasochistic Fictions and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Leihua Weng (Kalamazoo College, USA)

9. Foucault’s Herculine Barbin: A Step in the Genealogy of Psychoanalysis, Laurie Laufer (Université de Paris, France)

10. The Foucault Effect: Queer Theory and Its Discontents, David Greven (University of South Carolina, USA)

Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Cours, conférences et travaux (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

2 June 2024

Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Cours, conférences et travaux, EHSS Gallimard Seuil, 2024
Édition établie, sous la responsabilité de François Ewald, par Bernard E. Harcourt

« Nietzsche et Heidegger, ça a été le choc philosophique ! Mais je n’ai jamais rien écrit sur Heidegger et je n’ai écrit sur Nietzsche qu’un tout petit article ; ce sont pourtant les deux auteurs que j’ai le plus lus », dira Michel Foucault à la fin de sa vie. Puis, il précise : « Je crois que c’est important d’avoir un petit nombre d’auteurs avec lesquels on pense, avec lesquels on travaille, mais sur lesquels on n’écrit pas. »

Les Cours, conférences et travaux sont des témoignages inédits du « travail » de Foucault avec Nietzsche. Ces textes datent des deux grandes périodes de sa vie intellectuelle : d’abord le début des années 1950, quand il s’intéresse à Hegel et à la phénoménologie, ainsi qu’au marxisme. Le jeune Foucault expérimente alors de nouvelles approches pour développer une philosophie fondée sur l’expérience et l’analyse du discours. Ensuite, après la publication des Mots et les Choses en 1966, lorsque Foucault revient avec élan à Nietzsche pour élaborer sa propre méthode généalogique, relançant ainsi son projet d’une histoire de la vérité et du dire vrai.

C’est à travers la confrontation avec Nietzsche que Foucault aura construit sa propre manière de philosopher. Ces Cours, conférences et travaux sont indispensables pour comprendre comment Foucault a lu Nietzsche, en particulier au moment décisif où il le découvre. Ils sont essentiels pour saisir le Nietzsche de Foucault.

Roberto Esposito: “Oltre la biopolítica” / “Beyond Biopolitics” (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

2 June 2024

Symposium Global Foucault: Divergences and Agreements in Italian Thought

7 de Junho 2024 / 7th June 2024
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian | Auditorium 3
Simpósio Temático com Roberto Esposito

16h: Roberto Esposito: “Oltre la biopolítica” / “Beyond Biopolitics”
Introduz e modera / Introduction and moderation by: Gianfranco Ferraro (CEG – Universidade Aberta de Lisboa)

Comentário crítico / critical commentary by: Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins (Administrador Executivo da Fundação Gulbenkian / Executive Trustee of the Gulbenkian Foundation)

GLOBAL FOUCAULT: Divergences and Agreements in Italian Thought (2024)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

2 June 2024

GLOBAL FOUCAULT Divergences and Agreements in Italian Thought

Lisbon, 6-7 June 2024 (in person & online)

Orgs.: Gianfranco FERRARO, Greg BIRD, Giovanbattista TUSA

Universidade Aberta, Centro de Estudos Globais – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/91692099038

More info: https://foucault40.info/lisboa | https://globalfoucault.wordpress.com/
Contact: globalfoucault@gmail.com

n the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Foucault’s death, the Differenças italianas Research Group of the Open University of Lisbon will host a symposium on the relationship between Foucault and Italian Thought. It is undisputed that Foucault had a decisive impact on Italian Thought, but the central role of Italian Thought in the worldwide reception of Foucault since his death has not been sufficiently acknowledged. Books by prominent Italian philosophers such as Homo Sacer, Technologies of Gender, Empire, and Bíos have highlighted certain currents in Foucault’s scholarship and shaped its interpretation worldwide. For example, where would biopolitical Thought, gender theory, or dispositif theory be today without Italian interlocutors?

Our event invites contemporary Italian thinkers to reflect on the role Italian Thought has played not only in the emergence of new Foucauldian scholarship, but also in shaping the global reception of his scholarship. Our participants will be selected from the Italian Thought Network. We ask our participants to go beyond the typical scholarly exegetical accounts of how a particular theorist has interpreted Foucault. Instead, we ask our participants to explore how Italian Theory has produced new global lines of Foucauldian scholarship. What is the impact of contemporary Italian philosophy on the global reception of Foucault?

PROGRAMME

6 de Junho 2024 / 6 June 2024
Salão Nobre da Universidade Aberta

9h30: Acolhimento institucional do Centro de Estudos Globais e da Universidade Aberta / Institutional welcome from the Center for Global Studies and the Open University: Gianfranco Ferraro

Saudações do Diretor do Instituto italiano de Cultura / Greetings from the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute: dr. Stefano Scaramuzzino

Saudações do co-coordenador do Laboratório “Diferenças italianas” do CEG / Greetings from the co-coordinator of the “Italian Differences” Laboratory of the CEG: Gabriele De Angelis
Abertura oficial do Colóquio da parte do comité organizativo / Official opening of the Colloquium by the organizing committee: Gianfranco Ferraro, Greg Bird e Giovanbattista Tusa

9h50 – 11h50: Biopolítica e pensamento italiano / Biopolitics and Italian Thought
Alfonso Galindo Hervás, Biopolitica. Istituzione. Variazioni foucaultiane di Roberto Esposito / Biopolitics. Institution. Foucaultian Variations by Roberto Esposito

Elettra Stimilli, Biopolitica e pensiero italiano / Biopolitics and Italian Thought

Ernani Chaves, Pasolini, pensador da biopolitica / Pasolini, thinker of Biopolitics

Chair: Marta Faustino

11h50: Coffee break

12h00 – 13h30: À volta do Foucault italiano / About the Italian Foucault

Daniela Calabrò, Le “vite infami” e le “attenzioni del potere”. Il rapporto tra politica e vita in Foucault ed Esposito / The “infamous lives” and the “attentions of power”. The relationship between politics and life in Foucault and Esposito

Sebastián Rodriguez Cardenas, El otro, el mismo: Foucault y Agamben entre dispositif y dispositivo / The other, the same: Foucault and Agamben between dispositif and dispositivo

Chair: Gabriele De Angelis

15h30 – 17h00: Polaridades foucaultianas / Foucauldian polarities

Costanza Serratore, Nietzsche in Foucault. La bipolarità della biopolitica nella ricezione italiana / Nietzsche in Foucault. The bipolarity of biopolitics in Italian reception

Oswaldo Giacoia jr., Exceptio e Bando: Alcance e Limites da Biopolítica / Exceptio and Bando: Scope and Limits of Biopolitics

Chair: Irene Viparelli

7 de Junho 2024 / 7 June 2024
Salão Nobre da Universidade Aberta

9h30 – 11h30: Arqueologias foucaultianas / Foucauldian Archaeologies
Sajjad Lohi, Foucault, l’Iran, l’Italia /Foucault, Iran, Italy

Giulio Goria, The Atlas of Knowledge: Archaeology from an Italian Debate at the End of the Sixties

Gianfranco Ferraro, Conversioni italiane: per un’archeologia del “pensiero vivente” / Italian conversions: Towards an archaeology of the “living Thought”

Chair: Enrica Lisciani Petrini

11h30: Coffee break

11h30 – 13h30: Pensamento dispositivo / Dispositive Thought
Dario Gentili, Governamentalità socialista: sviluppi e differenze nell’Italian Thought a partire da uno spunto di Foucault / Socialist governmentality: developments and differences in Italian Thought starting from Foucault’s remark

Giovanbattista Tusa, I mostri di Foucault. Riflessioni sul dispositif / Foucault’s monsters. Reflections on the dispositif

Greg Bird, What is a dispositif, according to Esposito?
Chair: Arianna Mencaroni

7 de Junho 2024 / 7th June 2024
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian | Auditorium 3
Simpósio Temático com Roberto Esposito

16h: Roberto Esposito: “Oltre la biopolítica” / “Beyond he Biopolitics”
Introduz e modera / Introduction and moderation by: Gianfranco Ferraro (CEG – Universidade Aberta de Lisboa)

Comentário crítico / critical commentary by: Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins (Administrador Executivo da Fundação Gulbenkian / Executive Trustee of the Gulbenkian Foundation)