Foucault News

Dean, J. From solidarity to self-promotion? Neoliberalism and left politics in the age of the social media influencer (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

19 November 2023

Dean, J.
From solidarity to self-promotion? Neoliberalism and left politics in the age of the social media influencer (2023) Capital and Class

DOI: 10.1177/03098168231199907

Abstract
The aim of this article is to map the contested intersections of influencer culture and left/progressive politics within the current conjuncture. Furthermore, drawing on a combination of Gramscian and Foucaultian insights, the article considers the implications of these intersections for how we theorise the relationship between neoliberalism and left politics. In so doing, my argument is threefold.

First, I suggest that social media influencers and influencer activists have turned to various forms of left politics as a means of establishing a distinctive personal brand, and heightening their social media clout. Second, I suggest that these developments have been met with something of a backlash among some left commentators, wary of the superficiality – and privileging of self-promotion over solidarity – that influencer activism entails, in keeping with a broader disaffection with what some consider to be the excessively individualistic flavour of contemporary forms of online ‘identity politics’. Third, I note that left critics of influencer activism often posit a distinction between ‘proper’ – that is, materialist, solidaristic – left politics, on one hand, and superficial, individualistic influencer activism, on the other. But, drawing on a conception of neoliberalism inspired by Foucault’s 1979 lectures, I suggest that, in a neoliberal digital capitalist context, this distinction becomes hard to sustain. This argument has two further implications. First, it becomes very difficult to extricate oneself from the imperatives of neoliberal digital culture, even if one is politically opposed to neoliberalism; and, second, the figure of the social media influencer, far from being exceptional or anomalous, is merely a more overt or extreme manifestation of logics that are already endemic in contemporary cultural and political life. © The Author(s) 2023.

Author Keywords
celebrity; identity politics; influencer culture; left politics; neoliberalism; social media

Schultz, Daniel J. Review of The History of Sexuality, Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh, by Michel Foucault

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

18 November 2023

Schultz, Daniel J. Review of The History of Sexuality, Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh, by Michel Foucault. The Comparatist 47 (2023): 413-424.
https://doi.org/10.1353/com.2023.a911953

Extract
When Volumes 2 and 3 of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality appeared in 1984, a publisher’s insert announced the imminent arrival of a fourth volume, Confessions of the Flesh. The text was advertised as dealing “with the experience of the flesh in the first centuries of Christianity, and with the role played in it by the hermeneutic, and purifying decipherment, of desire” (vii). Foucault died in June 1984, and the promised fourth and final volume, scheduled to appear in October of that year, did not arrive. Daniel Defert, Foucault’s longtime partner, had the unfinished manuscript placed in a bank vault where it sat for over three decades. Until now. After its long repose in the vault, Histoire de la sexualité 4: Les aveux de la chair has seen the light of day; the unfinished French manuscript, edited by Frédéric Gros, was published by Gallimard in 2018. In 2021, Robert Hurley’s English translation was released: The History of Sexuality, Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh (Pantheon). The English text is the subject of this review essay.

Stewart Clegg and Johan Ninan, Unravelling governmentality in project ecologies (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

15 November 2023

Stewart Clegg and Johan Ninan, Unravelling governmentality in project ecologies (2023) Project Leadership and Society, 4,

DOI: 10.1016/j.plas.2023.100099

Abstract
Under the rubric of project governance, governmentality has been defined as a general mode of governing people in projects, whether these projects are organized in an authoritarian, liberal, or neo-liberal mode in their approach to authority relations. We argue that governmentality is a specifically neo-liberal form of social integration, one that stresses the freedom of its subjects, and discuss how it extends governance beyond enforcing contracts and includes all stakeholders. Examples of governmentality in the modern era of projects are discussed as a proactive strategy conceptualized in five contexts in which the concept of governmentality, as governing through freedoms, has been applied in project ecologies. These include governance by contract, governance by alliancing, governance by influence, governance by co-optation, and governance by incorporation. The degree of governmentality in play increases through the sequence. © 2023 The Authors

Author Keywords
East Kimberley Clean Energy project; Foucault; Governmentality; Neo-liberal; Project governance; Rio Tinto

La Verdad y las Formas Jurídicas. Coloquio (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

12 November 2023

PDF Programa coloquio 2023

PDF Programa coloquio 2023

Michael, R., Donnar, G. Crosshatch Fantasy: Unsettling Portals, Crisis Heterotopias, and Comings-of-Age (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

12 November 2023

Michael, R., Donnar, G.
Crosshatch Fantasy: Unsettling Portals, Crisis Heterotopias, and Comings-of-Age
(2023) in Elana Gomel, Danielle Gurevitch (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy, Palgrave, 2023, pp. 71-83.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-26397-2_6

Abstract
This chapter introduces an intriguing concept of ‘crosshatch’ fantasy: another world that is superimposed upon consensus reality. Using Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia and examining two influential examples of coming-of-age crosshatch fantasy, The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper 1973) and Elidor (Alan Garner 1965), their essay considers ‘crosshatch’ worlds as ‘counter-sites’ of crisis, transition, and maturation. In contrast to classic ‘portal’ fantasy, the heterotopic worlds in which these occur do not stay safely ‘over there’ in crosshatch fiction; they return to and irrevocably disrupt the ‘real’ world. This unsettling, transformative potential is equally true of the act of (re)reading itself. That is, entering the ‘portal’ of the fantasy text similarly constitutes a heterotopic space for the younger reader-especially when it comes to crosshatch fantasies. For protagonist and reader alike, crosshatch fantasy provides productive opportunities to come into power ‘out of sight’ before returning to a world changed ‘for ever and ever.’

Giuseppe Dambrosio, Potere, Soggettività, Post-Modernità (2021)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

11 November 2023

Giuseppe Dambrosio, Potere, Soggettività, Post-Modernità, Sensibili alle foglie, 2021

Nella prima parte di questo libro vengono ripresi e attualizzati gli studi di Michel Foucault sul potere disciplinare, a cui è connesso il concetto di dispositivo, per indagare le forme assunte da assoggettamento e soggettivazione nella post-modernità. È evidenziata, sul piano sia filosofico sia pedagogico che politico, l’inquietante esasperazione della disciplina di normalizzazione, particolarmente osservabile nei contesti di tipo educativo e formativo, che si concretizza nell’eccessiva e progressiva medicalizzazione della società e finisce per tratteggiare una nuova figura di «anormale 2.0» a fronte delle epocali trasformazioni antropologiche e sociali del mondo globalizzato, retto dalle leggi del neoliberismo. Nella seconda parte si osservano i processi di ibridazione tecno-digitale dei corpi, finalizzata a rapirne insieme il tempo storico e lo spazio fisico, il nodo forte del disciplinamento a mezzo di contesti strutturati di assoggettamento e de-soggettivazione. L’Autore propone i concetti di “non-corpo”, “non-tempo” e “non-spazio” per identificare l’evoluzione degli effetti dei processi di “deformazione” legati alla globalizzazione e alle derive tecnologiche e tecnocratiche del neoliberismo. E ci invita a sperimentare la costruzioni di altre e diverse forme di soggettività, in particolare a dare vita a sempre nuovi percorsi educativi di soggettivazione in un’ottica di “resistenza” al potere.

Description in English

POWER, SUBJECTIVITY, POST-MODERNITY
The first part of this book investigates the forms of subjection and subjectivation in post-modernity, and focus on Michel Foucault’s studies of disciplinary power and the associated concept of dispositif. The disciplinary notion of normalisation is highlighted from a philosophical, pedagogical and political point of view particularly as it operates in educational contexts.

The form of in the excessive and progressive medicalisation of society culminates in outlining a new figure, the ‘abnormal 2.0’, in the frame of the epochal anthropological and social transformations of a globalised world, ruled by the neo-liberal paradigm.

The second part of this book looks at the processes of techno-digital hybridisation of bodies, aimed at abducting both historical time and physical space; that is, the main node of disciplining by means of structured contexts of subjugation and de-subjectivation.

The author proposes the concepts of ‘non-body’, ‘non-time’ and ‘non-space’ to identify the evolution of effects of the ‘deformation’ processes caused by globalisation and technological and technocratic drifts of neo-liberalism. The author invites us to experiment with new and different forms of subjectivity, in particular to give life to ever new paths of subjectivation in educaation from a perspective of ‘resistance’ to power.

GIUSEPPE DAMBROSIO è laureato in Filosofia e in Scienze Pedagogiche. In passato ha lavorato come educatore nell’ambito del disagio adolescenziale. Da diversi anni insegna al liceo. Per le Edizioni Mimesis ha pubblicato: “L’alienato pastore dell’Essere”, in M. Bellini (a cura di) Corpo e rivoluzione. Sulla filosofia di Luciano Parinetto, (2012) e Heidegger, a destra della verità, (2021).

PIERANGELO BARONE è docente di Pedagogia della marginalità e della devianza presso l’Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca. Tra le sue pubblicazioni: La materialità educativa (Unicopli, 1997), L’animale, l’automa, il cyborg (Mimesis, 2004), Vite di flusso. Fare esperienza di adolescenza oggi (Franco Angeli, 2018).

New translation of Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic forthcoming (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

10 November 2023

A new translation and critical edition of Michel Foucault’s Birth of the Clinic – edited by Stefanos Geroulanos and Stuart Elden, translated by Marie Satya McDonough – beginning a new project

From Stuart Elden’s blog

Turnbull, M. Assembling the Crisis of COVID-19 in Australia: A Foucauldian Analysis of Prime Ministerial Press Conferences in March 2020 (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

9 November 2023

Turnbull, M. Assembling the Crisis of COVID-19 in Australia: A Foucauldian Analysis of Prime Ministerial Press Conferences in March 2020
(2023) Genealogy, 7 (3)

DOI: 10.3390/genealogy7030066

Abstract
In this article, I present a Foucauldian analysis of the speeches made by the then Prime Minister of Australia (Mr. Scott Morrison) in March 2020. This analysis sets out to explore the political rationalities that assembled COVID-19 as a particular type of ‘problem’ that warranted unprecedented governmental intervention into the everyday lives of citizens. I believe that the insights provided by such an analysis are relevant to ongoing examination of governing in liberal democracies both during a crisis and afterwards. © 2023 by the author.

Author Keywords
Australia; COVID-19; Foucault; press conferences

CFP: The twenty-second annual meeting of the Foucault Circle (2023-24)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

7 November 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS
The twenty-second annual meeting of the Foucault Circle
Emerson College
Boston, MA, USA
May 17-19, 2024

We seek submissions for papers on any aspect of Foucault’s work, as well as studies, critiques, and applications of Foucauldian thinking.

Paper submissions require an abstract of no more than 750 words. All submissions should be formatted as a “.doc” or “.docx” attachment, prepared for anonymous review, and sent via email to the attention of program committee chair Patrick Gamez (pgamez@nd.edu) on or before December 18, 2023. Indicate “Foucault Circle submission” in the subject heading. Program decisions will be announced during the week of January 22, 2024.

We expect that the conference will begin Friday afternoon and will conclude around lunch time on Sunday morning. Presenters will have approximately 40 minutes for paper presentation and discussion combined; papers should be a maximum of 3500 words (20-25 minutes reading time).

Logistical information about lodging, transportation, and other arrangements will be available after the program has been announced.

For more information about the Foucault Circle, please see our website: http://www.foucaultcircle.org or contact our Coordinator, Edward McGushin: emcgushin@stonehill.edu

Michael Ure, Michel Foucault’s Rhetorical Practice: The 1961 Preface to History and Madness (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

6 November 2023

Michael Ure, Michel Foucault’s Rhetorical Practice: The 1961 Preface to History and Madness (2023) Philosophy and Rhetoric, 52 (6), pp. 142-167.

Abstract
This article examines Foucault as a rhetorician rather than as a historian of parrhesia and rhetoric. It explores what we can learn about his philosophy by examining it through the lens of his rhetorical practices. Focusing on his famous 1961 preface to History and Madness, it suggests that Foucault’s model of philosophy entails a rhetoric of conversion or transformation.

Author Keywords
Foucault; limit-experiences; philosophy as a way of life; prefaces; rhetoric