Foucault-L

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault news

c . ofarrell — 2010-09-02T01:54:21+05:30

Dear everybody The Foucault news section on my blog is now up and running http://inputs.wordpress.com/ I forgot to add in my last email that news in languages other than English are also very welcome. A brief description of the item in English would also be very helpful however!

Re: [Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

peter chamberlain — 2010-09-01T15:33:54+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-09-01T15:21:37+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

peter chamberlain — 2010-09-01T15:07:05+05:30

[Foucault-L] Foucault news

Clare O'Farrell — 2010-09-01T12:50:46+05:30

As many of you are no doubt aware, Jeremy Crampton has decided to take a break from the invaluable service he has been running since 2007 with his Foucault blog http://foucaultblog.wordpress.com Jeremy has started a new blog in relation to his other interests at http://opengeography.wordpress.com/ I have offered to take up the relay in terms of posting news about Foucault related matters. I know how much work Jeremy has put into this over the years, so I will see how long I can sustain it! I have therefore created a new category on my blog at http://inputs.wordpress.com which will publicise any events and new publications relating in any way to Foucault's work If you have any news about Foucault related activity which you would like to publicise please email me at c.ofarrell@xxxxxxxxxx News can relate to: *conferences, seminars, presentations *publications - books and articles. These can either be directly about Foucault or apply some aspect of his work. Please feel free to send as much information as you lik...

Re: [Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

a . e . leeds — 2010-09-01T06:37:21+05:30

I'll speak to that last sentence. Just off the cuff, Durkheim and Foucault are both neo-Kantian historicists: they look for culturally- and historically-bound a prioris. And, even more to the point, these a prioris of thought are crucial to their respective explanations of social cohesion. Lastly, Durkheim is a reasonable choice for an origin for French rationalist historicism, of which tradition Foucault is generally thought to be a recent epigone.

Re: [Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-09-01T06:26:14+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

Nathaniel Roberts — 2010-09-01T06:14:25+05:30

[Foucault-L] Giddens and Durkheim

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-09-01T05:27:00+05:30

Is anyone on here familiar much with the work of Anthony Giddens and Emile Durkheim? Some readers tend to conflate Durkheim's sociology and Giddens theory of agency with Foucault's notion of fluid power and think that all are somehow related. While there are similarities, I would think Giddens criticizes aspects of Durkheim's positivist doctrine (or form what I know of his work) and that Foucault is interested in non-duality of power as opposed to Giddens more limited goal of challenging the society (nurture) vs free human agency dichotomy. Have you read much of either Giddens or Durkheim? Do you think they're necessarily doing the same thing as Foucault? I know Foucault recognized an ancestor in Max Weber, but he rarely mentions Durkheim. Though that didn't stop Camille Paglia from twisting him into a Durkheim copycat.

Re: [Foucault-L] Nazi dictatorship - intentionalist v functionalist and 1976 course

M. Karskens — 2010-08-27T15:07:20+05:30

Prof. Machiel Karskens social and political philosophy Faculty of Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen - The Netherlands

[Foucault-L] Nazi dictatorship - intentionalist v functionalist and 1976 course

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-08-26T22:44:57+05:30

It seems there is a general historical debate regarding the nature of the Nazi regime, the intentionalist v functionalist debate. Intentionalists argue that the Holocaust was a result of a grand master plan that Hitler had from the beginning, whereas functionalists argue that the Holocaust was an improvised, last minute war scheme devised by the lower ranks of the regime and that Hitler himself was a weak dictator. Ian Kershaw, a very prominent Hitler scholar (regarded among the best today) seems to argue for a mix of both but more or less aligining with the latter broadly. He thinks that while Hitler and Nazi ideology had these general racialist and social darwinist themes, their implementation was not organized or regular but rather a result of competing bureaucracies and structures working underneath Hitler. He thinks that Hitler only made broad policy outlines and those who worked subserviently for him carried them out in a wide variety of haphazard ways, thus going against the idea that Nazi Germany was ...

[Foucault-L] Paradise of the women !

peter mikkelsen — 2010-08-26T19:09:26+05:30

How are you doing these days ? I recommend a webisite : [±www.dailygo.info±] to you. I have registered member in the shop,as long as registered,you can get 10% discount of all the products.They accept payment by paypal ,Visa cart and Master Cart ,it's very safe. Otherwise,There are many brands in the shop,I think you will like it ! Have a good day !

[Foucault-L] Multiple Childhoods/Multidisciplinary Perspectives: Interrogating Normativity in Childhood Studies

Patrick Cox — 2010-08-12T22:37:19+05:30

Dear Friends and Colleagues-- The Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers-Camden, New Jersey, USA is happy to announce a conferenece on *Multiple Childhoods/Multidisciplinary Perspectives: Interrogating Normativity in Childhood Studies,** May 20-21, 2011* at our campus in Camden. The full Call for Papers is now available at http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/multiple-childhoods. Kindly distribute the information to your networks. Hope to see many of you there. Thanks much. Kind regards, Dan Cook

Re: [Foucault-L] Erving Goffman, self performance

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-07-29T23:32:37+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Erving Goffman, self performance

Huub van Baar — 2010-07-29T21:23:47+05:30

[Foucault-L] Erving Goffman, self performance

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-07-29T19:53:16+05:30

I had to read Erving Goffman's 1959 book on "The Performance of the Self in Everyday Life" and I was surprised by some of the correlations between his concept of the self as a series of theatrical "performances" for different social situations and the work of Butler, Foucault and Nietzsche on the de-centered nature of the self and the projection of different "subjectivities" to others. Is anyone familiar with this book of sociology? If so, what do you think are similarities between Goffman and the writers above? More importantly, what are the differences? What makes Foucault, Butler or Nietzsche's conceptions of a performed self distinct from Goffman's idea of performance? Where are they original vs where are they not so? Hope this doesn't come at a bad time for everybody.

[Foucault-L] CFP: Special Section on the History of House Numbering

Reuben Rose-Redwood — 2010-07-28T23:02:21+05:30

Hi all, I thought the cfp below might be of interest to some spatially-oriented Foucauldians out there. Cheers, Reuben Rose-Redwood University of Victoria Call for Papers: Special Section on the History of Urban House Numbering for the journal, Urban History Street addressing is one of the most basic strategies employed by governmental authorities to tax, police, manage, and monitor the spatial whereabouts of individuals within a population. Despite the central importance of the street address as a political technology that sometimes met with resistance, few scholars have examined the historical practice of street addressing with respect to its broader social and political implications. We would like to invite those scholars with an interest in this subject to contribute to a peer-reviewed special section of the journal, Urban History, that we are organizing on the histories and geographies of urban house numbering. Articles should be no more than 8,000 words in length, with a preliminary submission deadli...

[Foucault-L] Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-07-25T16:24:07+05:30

So I know the Israeli/Palestinian conflict doesn't get much coverage on this list, but I was wondering if anyone on here had read his Desiring Arabs? In true Foucault-esque fashion, he analyzes the perceptions of same-sex relations in the Arab world under the influence of modernity and how that configured the way various Arab intellectuals approached nonhetero relationships among them, ranging from secular to Islamist, as well as the dangerous missteps the modern Gay rights movement makes in enforcing its own discourse on non-western forms of same-sex relationships. I bring this up because many non-academic social commentators not used to critical theory and more exposed to Massad's outspoken views on the Israeli/Palestine conflict, accuse the book of "denying gays exist in the Arab world" and undermining the fight against discrimination by focusing on what they believe to be "trivials". Does this view necessarily hold? How important does anyone on here think it must be to emphasize the risks of a common t;ga...

[Foucault-L] The Art of Mangement as it took shape throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

michael bibby — 2010-07-19T14:19:20+05:30

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=119394698080676&ref=ts#!/topic.php?uid=119394698080676&topic=110 This thread is open ended: it remains to be seen in what sense this 'Art of Management', whose most general features are yet to emerge, can be considered 'contemporary' as we take up the privalege of our historical perspective...

[Foucault-L] The Art of Mangement as it took shape throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

michael bibby — 2010-07-19T14:15:26+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] article on psychological threats to democracy

Teresa Mayne — 2010-07-19T06:16:36+05:30

[Foucault-L] article on psychological threats to democracy

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-07-19T05:21:45+05:30

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/ What do people make of this? Does anyone think some of the data in here is a bit too obvious already? More importantly, are there any reasonable disagreements with the connections between the observations and larger claims drawn from them? How could one connect this to critical studies done on governmentality and individual agency in power?

[Foucault-L] Foucault, The Family and Politics - conference

Stuart Elden — 2010-07-10T22:27:09+05:30

This looks interesting. Details below and poster here . (Please don't contact me about this - I'm just the messenger) Foucault, the Family and Politics Friday, 12 November 2010, Kings College, Keynes Hall, Cambridge Attendance free - but please register. http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1325/ Closing date for registration is Tuesday 9 November, 2010. The conference will examine the theme of the family in Foucault's life and texts; it will then use his ideas to explore the politics of the family more generally in the contemporary world. Speakers include: Professor Remi Lenoir (Centre de Sociologie Européenne, Université Paris 1, France) David Macey (Translator, biographer of Michel Foucault and Frantz Fanon, UK) Professor Valerie Walkerdine (School of Social Sciences, University of Cardiff, UK/Visiting Professor, University of Oslo, Norway) Malcolm Thompson (History, University of ...

[Foucault-L] The Biopolitics of Development: A Symposium

Julian Reid — 2010-07-08T17:19:52+05:30

The Biopolitics of Development: A Symposium (September 9-10, 2010; Kolkata, India) Keynote Speakers Michael Dillon (Sehir University, Turkey) Manas Ray (CSSSC, India) Julian Reid (University of Lapland, Finland) Ranabir Samaddar (Calcutta Research Group, India) Organized by the University of Lapland and the Calcutta Research Group. Funded by the Finnish Academy How can we understand the historical and contemporary function of development doctrine in the propagation and expansion of liberal regimes of governance? How has the strategic function of development changed in the transition from liberal to neoliberal rationalities of governance? And what is the relevance of the shift from development to sustainable development for the increasingly global hegemony of neoliberalism? Answering these questions requires examining the fundamental and complex correlations of economy, politics and security with life in liberal doctrine. For it is the reification of life which has permitted liberalism to proliferate, like a p...

[Foucault-L] critiquing Thomas Friedman and "golden straightjacket"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-07-02T12:36:25+05:30

I know the 1979 course on neolib was his only survey of contemporary economic-politics in any detail and that it is only preliminary and not exhaustive. I was wondering if anybody knew of anyway to use certain ideas in that course to construct a critique of Friedman's "Golden Straightjacket" argument that argues all world states are to embrace the free market system inevitably in order to survive in the contemporary world order. I know I'm somewhat simplyfying what is really a somewhat slippery term in his work but if anybody knows of any pointers with which to scrutinize these claims, I would be most happy.

Re: [Foucault-L] Translation of "Curative" and "Redemptive" Histories?

M. Karskens — 2010-07-01T17:53:22+05:30

Prof. Machiel Karskens social and political philosophy Faculty of Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen - The Netherlands

[Foucault-L] Translation of "Curative" and "Redemptive" Histories?

Kaelin Alexander — 2010-07-01T02:18:30+05:30

Hey Foucault-L, I'm reading Heather Love's excellent "Spoiled Identity," in which she brings up Foucault's formulatons of "redemptive" and "curative" approaches to history from *Nietzsche, Genealogy, History*. I don't have the original in front of me, so I was wondering if anyone happens to know the French terms Foucault uses for "redemptive" and "curative"--these seem like somewhat idiosyncratic terms, given Foucault's definitions. As a less topical side note, it's interesting how much these terms help us to pluralize and complicate what Sedgwick and others have called "reparative" reading practices, especially insofar as Sedgwick claims in *Touching Feeling* (ironically, to be sure, in light of her earlier work) to have had very little to do with Foucault, as well as very little understanding of his work. Moreover, given that a lot of Foucauldian work falls firmly into the camp of what she calls "paranoid reading," it's interesting to see Foucault's own methodology as open to other epistemological possibili...

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and Psychoactive Medicine

Fouad Kalouche — 2010-06-22T13:23:00+05:30

Yes, but the illness itself is a social phenomenon--and not a so-called "natural" one separated from its cultural elements. Take your example, "depression": the reason biochemical imbalances are predominant in our contemporary societies is the social experience of watching TV, movies, and other media associated with emotional manipulation --and the associated increase in levels of biochemcial/endocrinal/hormonal activity (dopamine, adenaline, acetylcholine, as well as testosterone, serotonin, etc.). So it is always a social reality--which is historical -- and not some natural reality that can explain illness, etc. And thus it is not always disciplinary power that can explain something like "medecine", although many of the geneological studies of Foucault focused on social-historical settings when disciplinarity was emerging... The best place to start exploring your question in Foucault is the very short "Maladie mentale et psychologie" and " naisance de la clinique." Fouad Kalouche __________________________...

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and Psychoactive Medicine

michael bibby — 2010-06-22T05:58:46+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and Psychoactive Medicine

Jeffrey Tallane — 2010-06-22T04:30:50+05:30

Hello Edward, On thisproblem, a lot of commentators have read Foucault too quickly, to say it the politically correct way. Foucault has never said that madness, psychiatric illness,etc didn't exist or thatit was only disciplinary. Foucault, who also got a licence in clinical psychology, also worked in psychiatric institutions and knew verry well that madness was real... Foucault's primary thesis "Histoire de la folie" should be undersood with regard to the particulat methodology. More directly, I think whe cannot understand what it is about if we don't pay attention to methodology and how Foucault creates his object of research. A lot of commentators abstracted the concepts from the positive basis on which Foucault was working, leading to some curious metaphysics or epistemology. So, what was Foucault's methodology? Whe could certainly agree that it was "history" (a field he contributed to transform, as his close friend Paul Veyne said). What is the corpus on which he was working? Archive, texts, materializat...

[Foucault-L] Foucault and Psychoactive Medicine

Edward Comstock — 2010-06-22T01:02:55+05:30

I have a general sense from Psychiatric Power and other works that Foucault argues that medicine, in early psychiatric practice and until around the mid-twentieth century or so, has mostly only a disciplinary function. And for this reason, medicine in psychiatry is frequently not understood to actually act on or "cure" the underlying disorder, but rather to, say, curb or eradicate unwanted behaviors, or to reproduce certain effects of the disorder, or serve as the test of the disorder. But now we can see drugs working at a "deeper" level, often, ostensibly, at the very level of the "organic lesion," as with drugs that are understood to work on brain chemical imbalances that cause, say, depression. So my question is, can anybody recommend any research on the role of drugs in psychiatry and the movement towards drugs as a kind of "cure" of the disorder rather than as a disciplinary technology? Or does anybody know a place where Foucault is clear about his position on this? Any thoughts well appreciated! _______...

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

M. Karskens — 2010-06-21T15:57:03+05:30

Prof. Machiel Karskens social and political philosophy Faculty of Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen - The Netherlands

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Teresa Mayne — 2010-06-21T05:57:33+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Fouad Kalouche — 2010-06-21T02:26:50+05:30

I think that l'inactuel's answer was the most direct response to your query about power and aesthetics. If you insist on exploring aesthetics in its interconnectedness with power --and not merely in its relation to sublimation, creativity, escapism, etc.--you need to pay attention to the Le Courage... lecture and to the distinction between a political/transformative engagement with existence and a sublimatory/escapist engagement. This is the difference between creating another world from a Platonic perspective and from a Cynic perspective, for example, as explained in the lectures. There is a lot there about how to 'transform' self and world (and thus be intricately involved in 'power') and how to create different/other discourses and practices (that are not aiming at changing the world, although they may change perspectives on the world, etc.). It is a lot more complicated than that and needs a serious enaggement with the text--as you were invited to do by l'inactuel. Now if you are not interested in this a...

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Jeffrey Tallane — 2010-06-21T02:03:38+05:30

Hello, The separation I was talking is something Foucault discovered within the history of philosophy. In his last lecture, after analysing two platonic texts, Foucault finds out that there are two main tendencies about what whe call "a philosopher": the one who is a theorist and who can preach what he don't practice ; and the other one who chose an "aesthetics of existence", who sees philosophy firstly as a way of life and not as a theory. But in this case Foucault uses the term "esthétique" in an ethical context (aesthetics of the self, aesthetics of existence...), and not in a cognitive or metaphysical context. It referred to the idea of being your own artist and also your own piece of art. Of course you're free to interpret it the way you like... Fore something different, maybe you could be also interested by the first chapter ot "The order of things", where Foucault describes the visual experience of Las Meninas painted by Diego Velazquez. I just found an interesting article on this topic here, but in fr...

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Teresa Mayne — 2010-06-20T19:08:26+05:30

Hi Consirération, While I certainly do appreciate your opinion, and aside from debating what Foucault actually thought. I very simply see more in Foucault's work than the strict separation between aesthetics in the case of art and the metaphysical creation of how the world is represented. I find creativity central to both traditional art and the world as representation. One of the differences I find is that the latter is part of an ideological (I know loaded term in regards to Foucault, but right now that is what is coming to mind) bind that eludes the perception of it as a creation, the former is used to channel creativity in an 'acceptable' manner. The way in which I am approaching the topic is through power. Anyways, my goal is not to regurgitate Foucault. While I don't think me and him saw the world in the same way in regards to this topic, I also don't expect that (that would be extremely boring - Foucault and I wouldn't learn anything). I am writing this on the fly, but I will certainly give your commen...

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Consirération Inactuelle — 2010-06-20T18:25:55+05:30

Hello, I think that in a foucaldian perspective, aesthetics has certainly nothing to do with metaphysical or cognitive problems. It can not have something to do with "sense impressions" or the question of consciouseness or how the world is created. When Foucault talks about "aesthetics", he generally designates something like artistic creation, the problem of "style"... In this way, in "Le courage de la vérité" (his last courses at the Collège de France, 1984), there is an interesting lecture about the "aesthetics of existence" (esthétiques de l'existence) in opposition with the "methaphysics of the soul" (métaphysique de l'âme), when he compares Plato's Alcibiade and Lachès. Explaining that these two points of view were deeply footed in the history of occidental thinking, but that the second (metaphysics of the soul) would became dominant in our modernity. But with the cynical impulse and its transformations, the aesthetics of life would remain silently, in other forms. In the same lectures, Fouc. also empha...

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-06-17T10:18:50+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Teresa Mayne — 2010-06-17T04:33:58+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Douglas Olena — 2010-06-17T01:57:47+05:30

[Foucault-L] Aesthetics and Power

Teresa Mayne — 2010-06-17T01:29:51+05:30

Hello again. It's been a while, but I was wondering if anyone knows if Foucault wrote anything on the relation between aesthics and power? I am writing a review on 'The Political Life of Sensation' by Panagia and it would be a great help if I could add some more depth to my theory with 'sweet pea's' help. I understand aesthetics to be a broader conceptual apparatus, that depending on the relation to which, we construct our relationship towards the world through consciousness's interpretation of it (i.e. representation). So, the work doesn't have to necessarily revolve around the traditional conception of art, but if we could find something that plays with it a bit would be absolutely brilliant. Thanks, Teresa

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

Nathaniel Roberts — 2010-06-05T11:32:49+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

martin hardie — 2010-06-05T10:08:03+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

David McInerney — 2010-06-05T09:54:24+05:30

Fair enough. As points of curiosity, not arguing.... In 1984 I went to Johns Hopkins and got a first taste of using the internet. In 1985 I transferred to Carnegie-Mellon Univiersity and got a much larger taste that involved the entire campus community. By 1987 not only had every undergrad been on the net for while but there were controversial studies of online porn and some of us were test subjects for the precursors of what is today DSL. This was a cross-campus phenomenon although not universal at all schools. My earliest experiences go back to around 1983. More importantly, the discourse around building the thing (or something similar) and deploying it for hoi poloi goes back long before that. An interesting aspect of the way "web 2.0" is shaping up, to my mind, is that it most resembles (with is centralized control) some of the alternative visions to the Internet that were being put forward (e.g., by Bell Telephone) in the late 60s and early 70s. -t control _______________________________________________...

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

Thomas Lord — 2010-06-05T09:36:20+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

Nathaniel Roberts — 2010-06-05T09:22:31+05:30

[Foucault-L] new listserve: Exploring Childhood Studies

Patrick Cox — 2010-06-01T21:13:41+05:30

The Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University-Camden is excited to announce a new listserve catering to the multi-disciplinary field of Childhood Studies. Those of us who study issues around children, childhoods, youth and young adulthood are in far flung departments and professions, separated by disciplinary boundaries. This listserve will be a vital point of connection for scholars and practitioners in the multi-disciplinary field and serve a much needed function as a central clearinghouse of information for our disparate field. We welcome Calls for Papers, Announcements of conferences, events, new books, articles and other resources, requests for information, and information on new programs and departments. This list will also provide an opportunity to find people with similar interests across our broad field and open up discussion within it. To join, please go to: https://email.rutgers.edu/mailman/listinfo/exploring_childhood_studies Thanks. Patrick Cox and Anandini Dar Department of Childhood...

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

Thomas Lord — 2010-06-01T08:01:40+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

Andrew Culp — 2010-06-01T07:51:36+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

lisahennon — 2010-06-01T06:01:23+05:30

_______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list _______________________________________________ oucault-L mailing list ----------------------------- _______________________________________________ oucault-L mailing list oucault-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://foucault.info/mailman/listinfo/foucault-l End of Foucault-L Digest, Vol 10, Issue 11 *****************************************

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

tomas marconi — 2010-06-01T00:16:33+05:30

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Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault v. Web 2.0

M. Karskens — 2010-05-30T02:19:24+05:30

Prof. Machiel Karskens social and political philosophy Faculty of Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen - The Netherlands