Foucault News

Solmaz M. Kive, The Other Space of the Persian Garden, Polymath: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Journal, Vol 2, No 3 (2012)
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Abstract
The Persian garden is claimed to be an “other space,” a place utterly different from yet fundamentally connected to the rest of places. In the light of Foucault’s discussion of “other spaces on one hand, and the representation of garden in the twelfth-century Persian poem Haft Paykar on the other, this paper is concerned with the way the places of everyday life are conditioned by the Persian garden. As a microcosm, the Persian garden bears the image of Paradise, of the perfect place. As an actual place, it is elevated to an earthly paradise, a perfected place. Considering it as a perfect, unqualified ideal place which remains unattainable and, at the same time, an entirely ordered place, which is perfected into an ideal place, the paper considers the interplay of the two forms of the ideal place (the perfect and the perfected) to discuss the way the Persian garden simultaneously contrasts, typifies and nullifies the other places.

Sanders, G. Help for the soul: Pastoral power and a purpose-driven discourse, Journal of Cultural Economy, Volume 5, Issue 3, August 2012, Pages 321-335
https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2012.675884

Abstract
This paper attempts to collapse the oft-reified demarcation between economistic ideologies and personal programs for self-improvement. In doing so, one can see the symbiotic relationship that exists between what are ostensibly distinct and separate social arenas. I argue that the porosity between discourses of self-improvement, religion, and capitalist expansion is achieved largely through techniques of ‘pastoral power’. Foucault conceptualized pastoral power to represent the circulation of productive micro-power among individuals. Pastoral power is especially effective in a neoliberal era marked by the retrenchment of the state apparatus in securing the good and welfare of the citizenry and the emphasis on the individual to secure her own happiness and wellbeing. By examining one specific case, the popular and influential Purpose-Driven Life program, one can see pastoral techniques at work: the valorization of highly individualistic subjects who are desirous of novelty and fulfillment; the tutelage of the good and charitable shepherd who is concerned with the salvation of each individual member of the flock; and the situational context that situates all of them.

Author keywords
commodification; personhood; self-help; theory; value

Vintges, Karen, Muslim women in the western media: Foucault, agency, governmentality and ethics, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WOMENS STUDIES Volume: 19 Issue: 3 AUG 2012, Pages: 283-298
https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506812443476

Abstract:
This article compares the ways in which Saba Mahmood’s The Politics of Piety (2005) and Cressida Heyes’ Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalization (2007), unlike current governmentality studies, employ the later Foucault’s ethical theory. By explaining the theoretical framework of the ‘middle’ Foucault (governmentality and agency) and the ‘later’ Foucault (ethics and agency) and then comparing Mahmood and Heyes’ use of Foucault’s work, it is argued that Mahmood and Heyes’ analyses, though thought-provoking and incisive, overlook aspects of Foucault’s later work, ultimately preventing them from offering productive ‘feminist strategies’. The author seeks to link this discussion to contemporary debates and analyses of agency, freedom and Muslim women in the media. The article concludes with an assessment of how Foucauldian feminist perspectives might be drawn on to establish effective ‘cross-cultural feminist strategies’, and closes by presenting a case of a cross-cultural media strategy aimed at countering the stereotypical images of Muslim women in the media.

Author Keywords: Agency; beauty culture; cross-cultural feminism; feminist (media) strategies; Foucauldian ethics; freedom practices; governmentality; Cressida Heyes; Saba Mahmood; media; Muslim women

Cahill, Helen, Form and governance: considering the drama as a ‘technology of the self’, RIDE-THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE Volume: 17 Issue: 3 2012, Pages: 405-424
https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2012.701444

Abstract:
Foucault’s ‘technologies of the self’ provides a frame through which to review the way in which different drama conventions work to govern the knowledge of the self that can be represented through the drama. The ‘Learning Partnerships’ workshops provide the field site for the study. These workshops position high school drama students as coaches and key informants contributing to the education of pre-service teachers. Teachers and students participate in drama workshops in which they explore issues relating to equity and inclusion in schooling. A range of drama conventions is used to assist participants to work beyond the stereotypical image of an opposition between teacher and students and to identify the more complex hopes and anxieties that can direct school-based behaviour. Post-structuralist theory is used to posit the way in which the selection of form might place a governance on the meaning that is created in the drama. Reflective practitioner case stories are used to examine the relationship between the conventions used and the construction of knowledge. Interview data gathered from teachers and students identifies the importance of a methodology which permits them to work together in a space of equals and to cross the divides associated with their institutionalised roles. Conclusions are drawn about the way in which different conventions can be understood as ‘technologies of the self’ which in turn assist participants to detect and re-work dominant stories.