Foucault News

Eric Kluitenberg: Foucault and the Living Archive (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

13 September 2010

This is a rather interesting interview with Eric Kluitenberg who applies Foucault’s work to the creation of online archives. You can find the full interview on the Institute of Network Cultures blog

Extract from interview

Eric Kluitenberg is a well-traveled theorist, writer, and lecturer who has produced media events in The Netherlands, Moscow, and Estonia, and also currently heads the media program at De Balie, a cultural and political hotbed in Amsterdam…

EK: The Living Archive is a really a theory, founded on the problem that most traditional archives are organized through selection, inclusion and exclusion. There is a strong tendency in these traditional models to leave out what is called ephemera, for instance flyers or temporary productions, like the Prelinger Archive’s industrial films that’s made for one particular purpose then expected to disappear. Ephemera are considered noise, irrelevant, and as a result, a large aspect of living culture is often excluded.

This is the topic of The Order of Things by Foucault, who says that dominant powers ultimately determine the structures of discourse and consequently what should be preserved in the archive. Everything that falls out is automatically irrelevant. This classical notion of archiving excludes too much, a problem increasingly recognized within the archiving world itself and even more pressing now that digital media allows countless people to put weird stuff online. The official archiving world doesn’t have an effective way to deal with all this ephemera. Foucault also critiques the archive as a static collection of dead phrases no longer a part of living culture, because it’s already enshrined in a system of power. You have to dig out the power structures underneath, figure out who created the rules, the political motives and material conditions behind it all. That’s why he calls it archeology. A static archive is a completely closed thing, in contrast to the multiple, dispersed discourses of present, living culture. To Foucault there are dominant forces that try to control this dispersal and order it in a particular way, making the archive immutable.

The Living Archive, then, is a theoretical model that makes discursive practice its active component. It refuses the canon of collected statements that Foucault critiqued and doesn’t accept any kind of necessary outcome. It emphasizes active discursive production, a continuous discussion and debate about everything in the archive, using the archive as a material for the discussion itself. Wikipedia is an example of this, maybe the best at it so far.

Hubert Dreyfus, Luring Back the Gods: Polytheism from the Odyssey to Moby Dick (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

12 September 2010

Update: August 2025. Details of this have long since vanished from the web, but here is a video of Dreyfus discussing Moby Dick uploaded in 2018

Sept. 17 Potter lecture

Hubert Dreyfus, “Luring Back the Gods: Polytheism from ‘The Odyssey’ to ‘Moby Dick’” will be the topic of the 49th annual Potter Memorial Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17 2010, in CUE 203.

The Department of Philosophy will host the talk by Hubert Dreyfus, professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dreyfus will base the lecture on his forthcoming book, All Things Shining which he wrote with co-author Sean Kelly, and he will discuss work of authors such as Homer, Dante and Melville. Using some of the greatest books in the Western canon, Dreyfus and Kelly show step-by-step how our culture lost its sense of enchantment and meaning.

Dreyfus, who holds a doctoral degree from Harvard University, is considered a leading interpreter of the work of Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and especially Martin Heidegger.

Along with teaching, Dreyfus has authored 10 books and nearly 200 articles. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a Fulbright and a Guggenheim.

The Potter lecture is named in memory of Frank Fraser Potter, a founding member of the WSU Department of Philosophy, who taught Latin, Greek and Italian for more than 35 years. The lecture brings an internationally known philosopher to WSU each year.

For more information about the Potter Memorial Lecture see https://pppa.wsu.edu/events-and-seminars/potter-memorial-lecture/

CFP: Twelfth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History (2010-11)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

11 September 2010

CFP: Twelfth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History

This year’s theme: Genealogies
Twelfth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
March 3-5, 2011

Submission Deadline: November 1, 2010

The Executive Committee of the Twelfth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce a call for papers. The Symposium, which is the capstone event of the History Department’s Women’s History month celebration, is scheduled for March 3-5, 2011. To celebrate and encourage further work in the field of women’s and gender history, we invite submissions from graduate students from any institution and discipline. The Symposium organizers welcome individual papers on any topic in the field of women’s and gender history. Papers submitted as a panel will be judged individually. Preference will be given to scholars who did not present at last year’s Symposium.

This year’s theme, “Genealogies,” references two trends in the field—the emergence of kinship and the family as tools for interpreting the past, on the one hand, and the continuing importance of the method Foucault called “genealogy,” on the other—and seeks to ask a question about the connections (and contentions) that might unite them. How might a history of the family be affected by Foucault’s insistence on refusing origin stories, and how might the new scholarship on intimacy-kinship influence an understanding of the instability and discontinuity of history? Is it possible, in other words, to construct a genealogy of genealogy?

Papers need not take up these questions directly, but they should
enthusiastically and intriguingly address some aspect of these concerns. In gathering together what we hope will be a geographically, temporally, and disciplinarily diverse body of papers, the conference will create opportunities for dialogue and discussion across these different fields. To that end, successful proposals could focus on, but would not be limited to, studies of whether and to what extent kinship relationships and claims of belonging might be said to have a history. Of related interest would be proposals that engage the idea of intimacy, particularly in relation to familial or social networks and their surrounding histories. When thinking of the idea of ‘family’, we challenge potential paper authors to critically examine the concept of
‘family’ and how the term is defined, utilized and deployed in a
variety of contexts. Additionally, we encourage panelists to focus on the kinship-related facets of the concept, including but not limited to: personal family histories, borderlands histories, architectural manifestations of gendered space, changing conceptions of the ‘traditional’ family, and family as viewed through the lens of modernity . In keeping with this year’s focus on gender, genealogy and kinship, we also hope to assemble a specifically historiographic panel addressing the state of the field. We are, then, particularly interested in paper proposals that problematize the history of genealogies—or the genealogies of history–or suggest new historiographic avenues of inquiry.

For the Twelfth Annual Symposium, we are delighted to announce a keynote speaker who engages many of these themes in her work:
• Tiya Miles, Associate Professor of History, University of Michigan, author of Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom (University of California Press, 2005)

The journal Gender & History will again sponsor a prize for the best
graduate student paper presented at the Symposium. Conference presenters will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the on-line proceedings volume. We possess limited resources to subsidize travel expenses for presenters. Giving priority to presenters with limited conference experience, we will allocate these funds based on the quality of presenters’ proposals and the availability of funds.

To submit a paper or panel by email (preferred method): please send only one attachment in Word or PDF format containing a 250-word abstract and a one-page curriculum vitae for each paper presenter, commentator, or panel chair to gendersymp@gmail.com

To submit a paper or panel in a hard copy format, please send five (5) copies of all abstracts and curriculum vitae to: Programming Committee, Graduate Symposium on Women’s and Gender History 309 Gregory Hall, MC 466, 810 S. Wright Street Urbana, Illinois 61801.

For more information, please contact Programming Committee Chairs, Lance Lubelski or Scott Harrison at gendersymp@gmail.com

Giorgio Agamben. The Process of the Subject in Michel Foucault (2009)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

10 September 2010

The first of 7 videos

Giorgio Agamben conducting a seminar on the creation of the subject in the work of of Michel Foucault. Agamben examined the idea of the subject (through a discussion of the role of the author) by contrasting theories of subjectivity between Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot. Agamben discussed the chiasmatic relationship of the art making the art as the artist makes the art. He spoke of the movement of the location of subjectivity from autonomy to ethics, Nietzsche, praxis, the notion of indifference, the two meanings of ontology, the fundamental difference between essence and existence, and the limits of language. […]

Iver B. Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending, Governing the Global Polity: Practice, Mentality, Rationality (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

9 September 2010

Iver B. Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending, Governing the Global Polity: Practice, Mentality, Rationality. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2010

About the Book
What does globalization mean for the principle of state sovereignty and for the power and functioning of states? Whereas realists assert the continued importance of states, constructivists contend that various political entities as well as the logic of globalization itself undermine state sovereignty.

Drawing on the state formation literature and on social theory, particularly the works of Weber and Foucault, Iver B. Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending question the terms of the realist-constructionist debate. Through detailed case studies, they demonstrate that states use nongovernmental organizations and international organizations indirectly to enforce social order and, ultimately, to increase their own power. At the same time, global politics is dominated by a liberal political rationality that states ignore at their peril. While states remain as strong as ever, they operate within a global polity of new hierarchies among states and between states and other actors.

“There have been many attempts to adapt Foucault’s arguments to the study of international relations, but this powerful and provocative book is the most sustained, and arguably the most successful in showing how the governmentality approach can be adapted to the analysis of global politics.”
—Barry Hindess, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University

A highly welcome and original contribution to contemporary debates on the shape and future of the international system and on the possibility of reconfiguring IR theory as social theory.”
—Mathias Albert, Bielefeld University, Germany

“Iver Neumann and Ole Jacob Sending have put meat on the bones of Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality, fulfilling the hopes of long-famished students and scholars of global governance. Through their focus on specific case studies, the authors have provided a much-needed contribution to the international relations literature, one that is sure to become a staple of courses and seminars throughout the world.”
—Ronnie D. Lipschutz, University of California, Santa Cruz

Iver B. Neumann is Director of Research at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Oslo.

Ole Jacob Sending is Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, where he heads the Research Programme on Global Governance and International Organizations.

Mariana Valverde, Specters of Foucault in Law and Society Scholarship (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

8 September 2010

Mariana Valverde, ‘Specters of Foucault in Law and Society Scholarship’ Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol 6 (October 2010)
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-102209-152951

Abstract
To reflect on how we, in 2010, might make the best use of the analytical tools developed by Michel Foucault, we need first to go back to the 1970s and situate his work in the intellectual history of the European left. We then see that Foucault was extremely careful to avoid developing a new model, a grand social theory that might replace the Marxism that was dominant then. Instead, he cultivated more empirically grounded, historically specific habits of thought, in a series of books that did not follow a consistent plan. In Foucault’s work, the basic terms are themselves tactical weapons, and hence do not have fixed meanings. That is, the terms are not concepts. This has gone largely unnoticed in the literature: Most of the scholars who use Foucault adopt the content but use it to prop up old forms. The governmentality literature has been particularly influential in many law and society circles, and it tends to use Foucault to produce an improved sociology of modernity—rather than to question our own desire to call ourselves modern and challenge our yearning for static models. This review examines one attempt to turn Foucault into a legal philosopher, a more novel but equally problematic effort to use Foucault to renovate old disciplines. The key argument of the review is that Foucault’s work is most useful when, rather than attempt to “apply” it, we use it as inspiration to ourselves to examine the preconditions and foundations of our own present’s intellectual habits.

Omar Moufakkir, Yvette Reisinger, The host gaze in global tourism (2011, 2013)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

7 September 2010

Book published in 2013
Omar Moufakkir, Yvette Reisinger, The host gaze in global tourism

Most tourism theories have been developed from the tourists’ perspective, including the seminal work by John Urry, ‘The Tourist Gaze’, which is now a classic text. The Host Gaze in Global Tourism is a unique book for researchers and students as it is the first to look at the host gaze from within the host community. It discusses how the gaze is constructed, how it has developed, how it varies between countries and how the tourism industry can affect it. By looking at the gazes of both Western and non-Western hosts, this book analyses the dynamics of a host destination and consequences the gaze can have upon the tourist.

Call for chapter proposals. 2011

The Host Gaze

We are pleased to announce a Call for Chapter Proposals for the book which will present new and emerging directions in research in the area of host gaze. Theoretical and practical research contributions are welcomed.

We invite submissions that will cover many aspects of the host gaze: How is the host gaze constructed and reinforced? How has it changed and developed? How does the host gaze vary? What are its consequences for the tourists who are its object? What are the aspects of the host gaze which distinguish it from the tourist gaze and from conventionally gaze encountered in everyday life? What determines the host gaze? Are there any pre-existing cultural images of the host gaze? How do hosts gaze upon or view different tourists? How different nations construct their host gazes? What are the differences in the host gaze across regions and nations? Which host gazes are the most/least authentic? What are the socio-cultural and economic aspects of the host gazes? What are the elements of the host gaze in the changing global economy of the tourism industry? How do the tourism development and its particular industries/sectors influence the host gaze?

Since international tourism requires diverse cultures to understand and appreciate each other the proposed book aims at offering a deeper understanding of the host gaze in building an image of tourists, promoting cultural relations, international cooperation and economic sustainability. Especially, the book aims at contributing to understanding cultural differences across nations and the impact of tourist behavior on the host gaze and the host behavior on developing an image of a tourist.

The editors of the proposed book welcome chapter proposals that focus on Western and non-Western host gazes (Western host gaze upon Western tourists, Western host gaze upon non-Western tourists, non-Western host gaze upon Western tourists, and non-Western host gaze upon non-Western tourists).

Expressions of interest and abstracts of up to 500 words should be sent to Omar Moufakkir (omar.moufakkir@stenden.com). All submissions will be reviewed and should include author(s) names, affiliations and contact details.

Abstract submission: No later than October 15, 2011
Notification of acceptance: October 30, 2011

Alan McKinlay and Eric Pezet, Accounting for Foucault (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

6 September 2010

Alan McKinlay and Eric Pezet, ‘Accounting for Foucault’, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, no 6, vol 21, August 2010, 486-495
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2009.08.006

Abstract
Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality has been central to critical accounting research for two decades, a centrality that has placed systems of calculation as the starting point of discussions of the state, the firm and the market. We begin by outlining the development of governmentality in Foucault’s own work. Despite the rich, productive nature of the concept, Foucault was careful to define governmentality as broadly and loosely as possible, the better to convey its open-endedness. The second section considers the introduction of Foucault to accounting research. The combination of Foucault and accounting history is not at all obvious, but became possible because a series of important contextual studies demonstrated that accounting history had to consider both the historicity of the profession and that its practices were vital in constructing measures of organisational performance, not simply uncovering previously obscure or hidden social realities. Moreover, accounting history studies the production of targets and measures of progress towards utility and welfare, processes that are not reducible to the firm or even to economic calculation. Our third section outlines the genesis of the ‘London School of governmentality’ and the main strands of their theoretical contribution. Finally, we examine the governmentalists’ analysis of corporate restructuring and the introduction of new production organisation by Caterpillar. Our aim is to use the Caterpillar case as the vehicle for a broader consideration of governmentality, strategy and the enterprise.

Erin Quinn, Surveillance (Exhibition) (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

5 September 2010

Erin Quinn, “Surveillance” ,
Centre for Creative Practices in Pembroke Street, Dublin,
August 2010

From The Irish Times 2010
[…] Quinn drills home the manner in which we are relentlessly watched on screen. Her photographs and footage deal with the increased surveillance of public, work and private spaces in modern life. Quinn takes airports as her case study. She spent a year in Dublin airport, photographing passengers from the top-down perspective of a CCTV camera. At first the photographs strike the viewer as exceptionally normal, with the graphic details of the figures’ clothing or baggage set off against a bland background. On further inspection they’re more troubling, insidious…
Her airport sessions were inspired by French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-84), particularly his studies of 18th-century designs for a “Panopticon”. […]

Alain Beaulieu, Towards a liberal Utopia (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

4 September 2010

Alain Beaulieu, ‘Towards a liberal Utopia: The connection between Foucault’s reporting on the Iranian Revolution and the ethical turn’, Philosophy Social Criticism September 2010, vol. 36 no. 7, 801-818
https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453710372065

Abstract
The shift in Foucault’s work from genealogy to ethics finds consensus among Foucault scholars. However, the motivations behind this transition remain either misunderstood or understudied in large part. Foucault’s recently published or soon-to-be translated 1977/—9 lectures (published as Security, Territory, Population and as The Birth of Biopolitics) offer new elements for understanding this dense and uncharted period along Foucault’s itinerary. In this article, the author argues that Foucault’s interpretation of the liberal tradition, which is at the core of the 1977—9 lectures, must be examined in combination with Foucault’s other major interests in the late 1970s, namely the Iranian Revolution and Kant. The discovery of spirituality (Iran), the valorization of an autonomous subject (Kant) and the call for a tolerant environment towards minority practices (liberalism) pave the way for the later Foucault’s ethics, which are grounded in spiritual exercises and means of liberating the subject.