Re: [Foucault-L] media rant about Foucault

Fwiw, I think it would be a monumental mistake to construe
this as, only or specifically, an attack on Foucault, and to
suppose that a philosophical/personal defence of Foucault
might suffice to provide a response of any sort.

To be sure, there is a lot to be said about this, but this
particular article comes as part of a longstanding campaign
by _Australian_ newspaper on curriculum, research and
conference funding, alongside that of various
Liberal-National Government ministers. At other times, the
personages on which to hang the campaign have been Negri,
Butler, and so on ...

An even greater mistake would, I think, be to throw one's
hands up and insist that 'postmodernism' is 'ambivalent' and
therefore not (as the article accuses) a "politicisation" of
the curriculum.

This is precisely what the campaign intends to accomplish,
which is to say, to present certain kinds of curriculum as
apolitical, disinterested, merely the accumulation of skills
with no political aim or consequence.

The key to the article's aim is the opening sentence: not
the declaration that Giles Auty lunches in London, but the
remark about tracking down "communist cells". In other
words, this is a McCarthyist move. The question as to
whether one seeks, in this climate, to renounce/denounce
one's 'Marxist friends' is a question I leave for others to
answer.

best,
Angela


: I thought you might be interested in seeing this
: extremely virulent
: attack on Foucault in today's "The Australian"
: describing him as the
: evil genius behind postmodernism and thus Marxism
: (!) and "a
: posthumous arbiter in the way our children and
: university students
: are taught"
:
: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867
,18874034-601,00.html
(article pasted below)

I find the increasing incidence of these kind of rabid and
uninformed right wing rants in the Western press very
disturbing. on
the front page of the same newspaper the prime minister of
Australia
was criticising "postmodern" influences on the Australian
English
curriculum
--
Clare
************************************************
Clare O'Farrell
email: c.ofarrell@xxxxxxxxxx
website: http://www.michel-foucault.com
************************************************
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  • Re: [Foucault-L] media rant about Foucault
    • From: David McInerney
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    [Foucault-L] media rant about Foucault, Clare O'Farrell
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