Foucault News

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.

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.

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.

Tell, Dave. “Rhetoric and Power: An Inquiry into Foucault’s Critique of Confession.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 43.2 (Spring 2010): 95-117. Lead Article.
https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.43.2.0095

Abstract
In the 1980s Foucault relentlessly distinguished between two discursive practices: the Christian confession and the ancient technologies of the self. This distinction provides a valuable opportunity to study the role of rhetoric in Foucault’s thought—not because both discursive practices are rhetorical forms, but, curiously, because Foucault insisted that one is not. By contextualizing both of these discourses of the self in terms of Nietzsche’s critique of metonymy, I argue that Foucault’s distinction between the confession and the technologies of the self teaches us two important lessons about rhetoric and power. First, because Foucault’s power requires recourse to a metonymically figured confession, it is a fundamentally rhetorical power. Second, to the extent that the “political indispensability” of the techniques of the self is tied to their rejection of metonymy, Foucault’s resistance is “nonrhetorical.”