Hi Sam and all,
I am doing similar research. I am looking at resistance in Foucault. In particular I am interested in the passage in History of Sexuality volume one where Foucault states there is no "one soul of revolt". Later in the same para he admits that "great ruptures" do occur.
I have always read Foucault as retaining the possibility of revolution but choosing not to write about it directly because of his refusal of the role of the academic as leader. I feel that most of the writers that have criticised Foucault on the question of resistance miss this point.
I do sense a missing link though between resistance as part of the relation of forces that constitute power and the "great ruptures". I do not find the ethical turn in Foucault's later works very convincing, to me it contradicts the materiality of power he analysed so brilliantly in Discipline and Punish etc.
I wonder what others here think of the work of Hardt and Negri and Paolo Virno? They argue that Foucault did not sufficiently comprehend the link between biopolitics and the development of labour as commodity. Their work is derived from Italian operaismo that began with Tronti and others. Deleuze makes reference to Tronti in his book on Foucault and speculates that Tronti may have developed similar insights to Foucault in the 60s. I see their work as an essential addition to Foucault (or perhaps as a Foucauldianised Marxism) which returns retains the materiality of power.
Richard
SAM G TAYLOR wrote:
I am doing similar research. I am looking at resistance in Foucault. In particular I am interested in the passage in History of Sexuality volume one where Foucault states there is no "one soul of revolt". Later in the same para he admits that "great ruptures" do occur.
I have always read Foucault as retaining the possibility of revolution but choosing not to write about it directly because of his refusal of the role of the academic as leader. I feel that most of the writers that have criticised Foucault on the question of resistance miss this point.
I do sense a missing link though between resistance as part of the relation of forces that constitute power and the "great ruptures". I do not find the ethical turn in Foucault's later works very convincing, to me it contradicts the materiality of power he analysed so brilliantly in Discipline and Punish etc.
I wonder what others here think of the work of Hardt and Negri and Paolo Virno? They argue that Foucault did not sufficiently comprehend the link between biopolitics and the development of labour as commodity. Their work is derived from Italian operaismo that began with Tronti and others. Deleuze makes reference to Tronti in his book on Foucault and speculates that Tronti may have developed similar insights to Foucault in the 60s. I see their work as an essential addition to Foucault (or perhaps as a Foucauldianised Marxism) which returns retains the materiality of power.
Richard
SAM G TAYLOR wrote:
Hello!
I'm a senior at Utah Valley State College finishing my last semester. I became interested in Foucault last year in a class dedicated to his works. I'm currently writing a senior thesis that examines Foucault's enigma of revolution and its relation to subjectivity and freedom. Ultimately, I compare these ideas with Kant's prohibition against revolution, his ideas concerning subjectivity and freedom. I'm currently working on their difference conceptions of the State and how the individual is constituted in relation to the State.
I joined this list to look at Foucault in fresh and intersting ways.
Thanks, I hope to read many interesting conversations.
Sam Taylor
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