Re: Using Foucault

On 11.1.97 dominique Franche wrote:

>That's a very good point. I am one of the administrators of the Centre
>Michel Foucault in Paris, and I must confess that I am sometime quite fed
>up with all these interpretations around Foucault's work. What we are
>trying to do in the Centre MF is precisely to use Foucault, and not to
>comment upon his work.
>Personnally, my field is historical geography : I have used Foucault when
>trying to explain the 1994 genocide in Rwanda (in an article called
>"Genealogie du genocide rwandais", published in Les Temps Modernes,
>mai-juin 1995, and in a small book to be published next february), for
>instance, and I use it in a huge book I am writing about catholic missions
>in Rwanda.
>Using Foucault "as a toolbox", as he has put it, seems to me the most
>interesting way of dealing with his work. Fortunately, Phil, you and I are
>not the only ones using Foucault in order to understand empirical work. If
>you read French, you will be able to find very soon some new texts dealing
>with this matter : the Centre Michel Foucault and the Centre Georges
>Pompidou publish next month a book called "Aux risques de Foucault", with
>texts written by Arlette Farge, Arnold Davidson, Jana Sawicki, Michelle
>Perrot, Jacques Revel, Jacques Le Goff, Hartwig Zander, Giovanna Procacci,
>Roger Chartier, etc. This book will show you several ways of using
>Foucault. If you are interested, let me know about it, and I will give you
>more informations (as I am not sure that advertising for a book is allowed
>on this forum).
>
>Sincerely and foucauldianely yours,
>
>Dominique Franche (Mr)
>
>dfranche@xxxxxxxxxxx
>Dominique Franche, 3 rue de Valenciennes, 75010 Paris, France; tel.: 0146077058
>La vie est un desert dont la femme est un chameau

Dominique,
Hooray for the Centre Michel Foucault! I am also a little tired of the
seemingly endless preoccupation to interpret and reinterpret what Foucault
means by this or that. I think that the more interesting and challenging
academic works are the ones that use Foucault's ideas. In "Prison Talk",
Foucault said (in reference to Nietzsche's influence on his work , "The
only valid tribute to thought such as Nietzsche's is precisely to use it,
to deform it, to make it groan and protest. And if commentators then say
that I am being faithful or unfaithful to Nietzsche, that is of absolutely
no interest". Those of us who are intellectually stimulated by F's thoughts
may well do the same.

Will "Aux risques de Foucault" be published in English?

Robyn.





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  • Re: Using Foucault (Rwanda)
    • From: RICHARD PITHOUSE
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