Foucault News

Hardy, Nick (2011). “Foucault, Genealogy, Emergence: Re-Examining The Extra-Discursive”. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 41 (1), p. 68.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.2010.00446.x

Abstract
This paper offers an alternative theorization of a well known account of restructured social relations-Foucault’s analysis of the production of “delinquency” in Discipline and Punish. The paper argues that in his later “genealogical” accounts like Discipline and Punish, Foucault does not maintain the same analytical and theoretical depth with regard to the “extra-discursive” that can be found in his earlier “archaeological” works. Furthermore, a key element of his genealogies was the concept of “emergence”, which Foucault used to denote the moment of a new “domination”. This paper argues that by inadequately theorizing the extra-discursive, Foucault cannot make a sufficiently strong enough argument with regard the formation and effect of “emergent” entities-indeed, that Foucaultian theory itself should broaden its conception of “emergence” to include other properties and entities, not only those that are part of “dominations”. By adapting critical realism to re-theorize the extra-discursive and emergence, the argument is made that Foucault’s account can be greatly strengthened. The paper concludes by critically re-examining the role of extra-discursive in producing the emergence of “delinquency” and thereby offering a richer understanding of complex social relations.

Mendel, Maria (2011). “Heterotopias of Homelessness: Citizenship on the Margins”. Studies in philosophy and education, 30 (2), p. 155-68.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-011-9226-y

Abstract
The concept of heterotopia challenges political theory, which has often focused on utopic thinking. Foucault describes a heterotopia as a heterogenous space that juxtaposes in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Streets, squares and parks form heterotopias when their utopic purity as public space is juxtaposed with the private spaces created by the cardboard boxes and other temporary shelters of homeless people. Since citizenship has traditionally been thought of as participation in a democratic public sphere, how do heterotopias of homelessness challenge the ideas about citizenship? Based on narrative research with homeless people in Poland, I show how the homeless conceive of their marginality. Their participation or non-participation in democracy is not hidden but, on the contrary, very visible in public spaces where they are included as excluded.

Schmidt, James (2011). “Misunderstanding the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’: Venturi, Habermas, and Foucault”. History of European ideas, 37 (1), p. 43.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2010.08.002

Abstract
In his 1969 Trevelyan Lectures, Franco Venturi argued that Kant’s response to the question “What is Enlightenment?” has tended to promote a “philosophical interpretation” of the Enlightenment that leads scholars away from the political questions that were central to its concerns. But while Kant’s response is well known, it has been often misunderstood by scholars who see it as offering a definition of an historical period, rather than an attempt at characterizing a process that had a significant implications. This article seeks (1) to clarify, briefly, the particular question that Kant was answering, (2) to examine using Jurgen Habermas’ work as a case in point – the tension between readings that use Kant’s answer as a way of discussing the Enlightenment as a discrete historical period and those readings that see it as offering a broad outline of an “Enlightenment Project” that continues into the present, and (3) to explore how Michel Foucault, in a series of discussions of Kant’s response, sketched an approach to Kant’s text that offers a way of reframing Venturi’s distinction between “philosophical” and “political” interpretations of the Enlightenment

Jenkins, Laura (2011). “The Difference Genealogy Makes: Strategies for Politicisation or How to Extend Capacities for Autonomy”. Political studies, 59 (1), p. 156-74.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00844.x

Abstract
Processes of politicisation and depoliticisation have become the empirical and theoretical focus for a growing body of political studies. However, the disparate literatures on these processes conceptualise and explore them in quite different ways. This article seeks to make some inroads into these debates by re-evaluating the concept of (de)politicisation and considering how academics can themselves participate in such processes. It suggests that (Foucauldian) genealogical critique offers a particularly fruitful analytically informed strategy for politicisation. Drawing on the work of David Owen, it is suggested that genealogical strategies help to address a depoliticising condition of aspectival captivity and extend human capacities for autonomy, without intensifying states of domination.