Foucault News

Gramsci and Foucault: A Reassessment. Call for chapters (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

14 September 2011

Gramsci and Foucault: A Reassessment

The ideas of these two towering thinkers of the 20th century, Gramsci and Foucault, have all too often fallen into opposing camps. Radhakrishnan (1987) argues that Foucault’s understanding of the subject remains philosophical, while Gramsci’s continual interrogation of the relation between the individual and the group allows for concrete political theory and action. Richard Day’s “Gramsci is Dead” (2005) meanwhile attacks the whole notion of hegemony from a Foucauldian perspective. Scott Lash (2007) argues that ‘power over’, in contemporary society, has become post-‐hegemonic, suggesting a more Foucauldian conception of ‘power from within.’ The noted neo-Gramscian Stephen Gill (Griffiths 2009), meanwhile, has drawn substantially on Foucauldian notions of panopticism to develop his new concepts of disciplinary neo-liberalism.

Are these two thinkers really as opposed as a simplistic humanist/antihumanist comparison might suggest, i.e. “the imprisoned leader of the Italian communist party and the anticommunist campaigner for reform of the penal system” (Ekers and Loftus 2008). Is it, as Barnett would have it, that “marxist and Foucauldian approaches “imply different models of the nature of explanatory concepts; different models of causality and determination; different models of social relations and agency; and different normative understandings of political power” (Barnett, 2005:8). Or is it merely that the two thinkers focused upon differing aspects of a wider picture that do not exclude each other: does Foucault’s concentration upon the micropolitics in society that adds up to and constitutes the central figure of the State undermine and discount, or complement and mirror Gramsci’s concentration on the hegemonic reach of that centre out into the minutiae of social relations?

This book sets out to deliberate in detail some of the issues, linkages, dissonances, and potential harmonies between the work of these two great thinkers, in search of tools of socio-‐political and critical analysis for the 21st century. Contexts as various as human geography, online social networking, political economy, critical theory and beyond are welcomed for a rich and lively collection.

Abstracts are invited from all interested parties towards a full proposal to Ashgate Publishing who are interested in this book. Subject to successful review, full chapters will be expected by 30th September 2012, with a view to publication by Ashgate Publishing in 2013.

Important Dates
=============

Deadline for Abstracts : 31st December 2011

Deadline for Full chapters : 30th September 2012 Publication: 2013.

Abstracts
Potential authors should send their abstracts to Dr David Kreps d.g.kreps@salford.ac.uk with a clear indication of which part of the book their abstract is aimed at, and a brief personal biog. Following review chapters will then be invited from those whose abstracts most closely coalesce into an interesting book.

Stuart Elden, How should we do the history of territory? Lectures (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

13 September 2011

Stuart Elden “How should we do the history of territory?”
Additional details

14 September 2011 – “How should we do the history of territory?” Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, USA

16 September 2011 – ”How should we do the history of territory?” School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

Abstract
Foucault did not say very much about territory, and what he does is, at best, misleading. Nonetheless, Foucault is extremely helpful in beginning to think about the history of territory. The basis for these two claims is the purpose of this talk, as I offer some reflections on the work I have been doing over the past decade on the history of territory, culminating in the book The Birth of Territory. It moves through four stages. First, I discuss what Foucault does says about territory, and indicate why it is misleading. Second, I try to show what Foucault might offer to a more adequate history of territory. Third, briefly, I outline some of the other approaches I have utilised in this work, specifically looking at the German tradition of Begriffsgeschichte and the Cambridge school of contextual history. Finally, I outline some of the key elements of the account I offer in The Birth of Territory.

Naja Vucina, Claus Drejer, Peter Triantafillou, Histories and freedom of the present: Foucault and Skinner (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

12 September 2011

Naja Vucina, Claus Drejer, Peter Triantafillou, ‘Histories and freedom of the present: Foucault and Skinner’, History of the Human Sciences August 18, 2011
https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695111415176

Abstract
This article compares the ways in which Michel Foucault’s and Quentin Skinner’s historical analyses seek to unsettle the limits on present forms of freedom. We do so by comparing their ways of analysing discourse, rationality and agency. The two authors differ significantly in the ways they deal with these three phenomena. The most significant difference lies in their ways of addressing agency and its relationship to power. Notwithstanding these differences, the historical analyses of both authors seek to problematize the ways in which past thoughts and practices limit contemporary forms of freedom. While Foucault seems to go furthest in this endeavour, a comparison may enrich both lines of historical analyses.

Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, Human Nature: Justice vs Power. The Chomsky-Foucault debate (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

10 September 2011

Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, Human Nature: Justice vs Power. The Chomsky-Foucault debate,
Edited by Fons Elders

A new edition of this work released with a new introduction by Fons Elders:

In 1971, at a time of enormous political and social change, two of the twentieth century’s most influential public intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, were invited by the Dutch philosopher Fons Elders onto Dutch television to debate the question: is there an ‘innate’ human nature independent of our experiences and external influences?

The resulting dialogue is one of the most original, provocative, and spontaneous exchanges to have occurred between contemporary philosophers, and above all serves as a concise introduction to their basic theories. What begins as a philosophical argument rooted in linguistics (Chomsky) and the theory of knowledge (Foucault) soon evolves into a broader discussion encompassing a wide range of topics, from science, history, and behaviourism to creativity, freedom, and the struggle for political justice. Both Chomsky and Foucault were also committed political activists closely associated with the promotion of ‘progressive’ causes, and it is their engagement with the wider political implications of their philosophical positions that has made this debate so influential (and as relevant today as in 1971).

This debate is still widely discussed, and it has also touched a popular nerve as over 800,000 people have watched it on youtube. Over the last three years Souvenir Press have sold translation rights for this book all over the world, from the USA to Spain and most recently China, demonstrating the continuing relevance of both Chomsky and Foucault to the concerns of the twenty-first century.

This is an intellectually exciting record of a meeting between two important philosophers that serves as an introduction to the defining themes of their individual theories, as well as being an introduction to the essential concerns and ideas of contemporary philosophy.

Noam Chomsky is one ofthe world’s most famous political activists and intellectuals (in 2005 Chomsky was voted by readers of ‘Prospect’ magazine to be the world’s leading public intellectual), while Michel Foucault’s writings on power, sexuality and knowledge are among the most influential works of the twentieth century (especially on writers in the fields of feminist and queer studies).

Ian Leask, Beyond Subjection: Notes on the later Foucault and education (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

8 September 2011

Ian LEASK (2011), Beyond Subjection: Notes on the later Foucault and education. Educational Philosophy and Theory. August.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00774.x

Abstract
This article argues against the doxa that Foucault’s analysis of education inevitably undermines self-originating ethical intention on the part of teachers or students. By attending to Foucault’s lesser known, later work—in particular, the notion of ‘biopower’ and the deepened level of materiality it entails—the article shows how the earlier Foucauldian conception of power is intensified to such an extent that it overflows its original domain, and comes to ‘infuse’ the subject that might previously have been taken as a mere effect. What emerges, accordingly, is a subject divested of ‘traditional’, substantial, formation, located wholly on an immanent plane, and yet centrally concerned with the practice of freedom and ethical resistance. In turn, what seemed to have no place at all in the earlier Foucault becomes central: in general, active subjectivization (subjectivation) as a counter to passive subjection (assujetissement); more particularly, subjects’ ongoing production and creation (via strategic decisions and localized opposition) of a new ethos, new ‘practices of self’, and new kinds of relations. With this alternative Foucauldian position outlined, the article then focuses more particularly on the practices of education: it concludes that, instead of being rendered merely the factories of obedient behaviour, schools or colleges can be the locus for a critically-informed, oppositional micro-politics. In other words: the power-relations that (quite literally) constitute education can now be regarded, on Foucault’s own terms, as being creative, ‘enabling’ and positive.

Keywords: Foucault; education; power-relations; agency; micro-politics

Arun Anantheeswaran Iyer, Knowledge and Thought in Heidegger and Foucault (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

6 September 2011

Arun Anantheeswaran Iyer, Knowledge and Thought in Heidegger and Foucault: Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA PhD, Summer 2011

Download here

Abstract
This dissertation shows how Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault, by questioning the very understanding of the subject-object relationship on which all epistemology is grounded, challenge two of its most cherished beliefs: 1. Thought and knowledge are essentially activities on the part of the subject understood anthropologically or transcendentally. 2. The history of knowledge exhibits teleological progress towards a better and more comprehensive account of its objects. In contrast to traditional epistemology, both Heidegger and Foucault show how thought and knowledge are not just acts, which can be attributed to the subject but also events which elude any such subjective characterization. They also show us how the history of knowledge exhibits ruptures when the very character of knowledge undergoes drastic transformation in the course of history. The dissertation concludes by hinting at how these new accounts of thought and knowledge have the potential to shake the very foundations of epistemology and lead us to a new framework for discussing the most basic questions of epistemology, towards an epistemology of ruptures.

Foucault teeshirts (2011, 2025)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

4 September 2011

If you’re in the market for a Foucault teeshirt or baseball cap or a mug, have a look at this page on the Zazzle site.

Zazzle is an American site which has a number of mirror sites around the world. I have linked to the Australian one. Still selling in 2025

Iain Munro, The Management of Circulations: Biopolitical Variations after Foucault (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

2 September 2011

Munro, I. (2011), The Management of Circulations: Biopolitical Variations after Foucault. International Journal of Management Reviews. August
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2011.00320.x

Abstract
This paper provides a review of the reception of Foucault’s later work on biopolitics within management and organization studies and contrasts this with the reception of these ideas in sister fields of research in the social sciences. In his later work, Foucault developed original conceptions of power, including ‘biopolitics’, ‘the apparatus of security’ and ‘neo-liberal governmentality’, which marked a departure from his conception of disciplinary power. This paper explores these concepts and elaborates the implications of these ideas for management studies. The structure of this argument is divided as follows. The first section outlines Foucault’s concept of biopolitics and neo-liberal governmentality, distinguishing these systems of control clearly from the concept of disciplinary power. The second section then undertakes a synthesis and evaluation of the extent to which these ideas have been developed within the field of management and organization studies. The final section provides a discussion of how these concepts have been used within other social sciences, distinguishing between three key approaches to their development in terms of: (a) the concept of governmentality; (b) the concept of immaterial labour; and (c) the concept of biocapital. Based on this analysis, a framework is developed which can serve as a basis for future research into the significance of these new biopolitical systems of control for management studies.

Alexandre Macmillan, Michel Foucault’s Techniques of the Self and the Christian Politics of Obedience (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

30 August 2011

Alexandre Macmillan, Michel Foucault’s Techniques of the Self and the Christian Politics of Obedience, Theory, Culture & Society July 2011 vol. 28 no. 4 3-25
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276411405348

Abstract
Foucault repeatedly argued that his work on techniques of the self were not a denial of his previous work on 18th- and 19th-century Europe, but a different way to make our present intelligible. Although Foucault explicitly associated modern techniques of the self with the Christian model, he never considered Christian techniques of the self in a comprehensive manner. The recent publication of his last two lectures at the Collège de France in 1983 and 1984 seems to fill this gap. Christian techniques of the self are characterized by an ascetic of obedience, and are considered as antithetical to ethical, parrhesiastic techniques of the self. Foucault’s detailed analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus and Euripides’ Ion in these lectures also provides valuable insights into the rationality that presides over the modern techniques of the self, and the logic that animates the Christian politics of obedience.

Michael Dillon and Andrew W Neal (Eds.), Foucault on Politics, Security and War (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

28 August 2011

Michael Dillon and Andrew W Neal (Eds.), Foucault on Politics, Security and War. Palgrave Macmillan. January 2011.

Description
This diverse collection of essays is the first to specifically engage Michel Foucault on questions of politics, security and war. It is also the first to take up the provocations found in Michel Foucault’s recently published Collège de France lectures, particularly Society Must Be Defended, Security, Territory, Population and The Birth of Biopolitics. The contributors reassess the way Foucault worked experimentally and in collaboration and dialogue with others. In so doing, the essays pursue lines of enquiry that Foucault briefly extolled but did not exhaust, and take him in directions that he could not have foreseen, including the War on Terror, risk, biosecurity and biopolitics, AIDS, racial and ethnic conflict, and the critique of law. Foucault on Politics, Security and War is an essential contribution to Foucault scholarship and also poses wider challenges to political theory, international relations, security studies and legal theory.

Contents
Introduction; M.Dillon & A.W.Neal
PART I: SITUATING FOUCAULT
Strategies for Waging Peace: Foucault as Collaborateur; S.Elden
PART II: POLITICS, SOVEREIGNTY, VIOLENCE
Goodbye War on Terror? Foucault and Butler on Discourses of Law, War and Exceptionalism; A.W.Neal
Life Struggles: War, Discipline, and Biopolitics in the Thought of Michel Foucault; J.Reid
Security: A Field Left Fallow; D.Bigo
Revisiting Franco’s Death: Life and Death and Bio-Political Governmentality; P.Palladino
PART III: BIOS, NOMOS, RACE
Law Versus History: Foucault’s Genealogy of Modern Sovereignty; M.Valverde
The Politics of Death: Race War, Bio-Power and AIDS in the Post-Apartheid; D.Fassin
Security, Race, and War; M.Dillon

Review on LSE blog Added 26 Feb 2013