Foucault and the Modern International

Foucault and the Modern International
Author: Philippe Bonditti
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137561580

This book addresses the possibilities of analyzing the modern international through the thought of Michel Foucault. The broad range of authors brought together in this volume question four of the most self-evident characteristics of our contemporary world-'international', 'neoliberal', 'biopolitical' and 'global'- and thus fill significant gaps in both international and Foucault studies. The chapters discuss what a Foucauldian perspective does or does not offer for understanding international phenomena while also questioning many appropriations of Foucault's work. This transdisciplinary volume will serve as a reference for both scholars and students of international relations, international political sociology, international political economy, political theory/philosophy and critical theory more generally.

Foucault and International Relations

Foucault and International Relations
Author: Nicholas J. Kiersey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317986768

The recent debate about biopolitics in International Relations (IR) theory may well prove to be one of the most provocative and rewarding engagements with the concept of power in the history of the discipline. Building on Foucault's arguments concerning the role played by the concept of security in 19th-century liberal government, numerous IR scholars are now arguing for the relevance of his theories of biopolitics and governmentality for understanding the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and broader issues of security and governance in the post 9/11 world. Conversely, others have criticized this idea. Marxist and Communitarian scholars have challenged the notion that the category of biopolitics can be 'scaled' up to the level of international relations with any analytical precision. This edited volume covers these debates in IR with a series of critical engagements with Foucault's own thought and its increasing relevance for understanding international relations in the post 9/11 world. This book was based on a special issue of Global Society.

Michel Foucault and Power Today

Michel Foucault and Power Today
Author: Alain Beaulieu
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2006
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780739113240

Foucault's thought finds innumerable applications across the social sciences, from studies in the social aspects of the medical practices and criminal sociology to juridical and economic sciences. Owing to their philosophical ramifications, his ideas have also impacted the spheres of literary studies, ethics, political thought, and 'critical ontology.' Few thinkers have left such an influence across such a diverse range of studies. Contributors attempt to pay homage to that diversity by presenting a multidisciplinary series of analyses dedicated to the question of 'power today.' Drawn from a number of papers presented at an international conference entitled 'Michel Foucault and social Control: conducted at Maison de la culture CTte-des-Neiges in Montreal on May 8-10, 2004 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Foucault's death, the essays that comprise this volume address the issue at both a theoretical level and as it pertains to specific fields of practice. In addition to paying tribute to Foucault's achievements and situating his thought within the French and larger European context from which it emerged, these essays also re-evaluate the relevance of Foucault's ideas for understanding contemporary conditions. This book is suited for a broad academic audience in the humanities and Social Sciences, especially philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies.

Foucault in Iran

Foucault in Iran
Author: Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2016-08-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1452950563

Were the thirteen essays Michel Foucault wrote in 1978–1979 endorsing the Iranian Revolution an aberration of his earlier work or an inevitable pitfall of his stance on Enlightenment rationality, as critics have long alleged? Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi argues that the critics are wrong. He declares that Foucault recognized that Iranians were at a threshold and were considering if it were possible to think of dignity, justice, and liberty outside the cognitive maps and principles of the European Enlightenment. Foucault in Iran centers not only on the significance of the great thinker’s writings on the revolution but also on the profound mark the event left on his later lectures on ethics, spirituality, and fearless speech. Contemporary events since 9/11, the War on Terror, and the Arab Uprisings have made Foucault’s essays on the Iranian Revolution more relevant than ever. Ghamari-Tabrizi illustrates how Foucault saw in the revolution an instance of his antiteleological philosophy: here was an event that did not fit into the normative progressive discourses of history. What attracted him to the Iranian Revolution was precisely its ambiguity. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, this interdisciplinary work will spark a lively debate in its insistence that what informed Foucault’s writing was not an effort to understand Islamism but, rather, his conviction that Enlightenment rationality has not closed the gate of unknown possibilities for human societies.

A Foucault for the 21st Century

A Foucault for the 21st Century
Author: Sam Binkley
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2009-01-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1443804665

How relevant is Foucault’s social thought to the world we inhabit today? This collection comprises several essays considering the contemporary relevance of the work of Michel Foucault. While Foucault is best remembered for his historical inquiries into the origins of “disciplinary” society in a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries, it seems that today, under the conditions of global modernity, the relevance of his ideas are called into question. With the increasing ubiquity of markets, the break up of centralized states and the dissolution of national boundaries, together with new scientific and political discourses on biological life, the world of today seems far removed from the bounded, disciplinary societies Foucault described in his most famous books. Yet in recent years, it has become apparent that Foucault’s thoughts on modern society have not been exhausted, and, indeed, that much remains to be explored. Within this volume, novel interpretations and thematic developments of key Foucauldian concepts are presented in the works of 24 authors. Prominent among them are new forms of neoliberal economic conduct framed by distinct governmentalities; new critical concepts of biological life reflected in Foucault’s analysis of biopower, and new theoretical treatments of the effects of subjectivation. Moreover, included among these theoretical departures are empirical studies of contemporary formations of religion and spiritual practice, consumerism, race and racism, the discourse of genetics and the life sciences, surveillance and incarceration, and new social movements. Drawn from a conference held at the University of Massachusetts, Boston bearing the same title, A Foucault for the 21st Century: Governnentality, Biopolitics and Discipline in the New Millennium both expands our understanding of Foucault’s central theoretical legacy, and applies his ideas to a range of contemporary empirical phenomena.

Foucault on Freedom

Foucault on Freedom
Author: Johanna Oksala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2005-06-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521847797

Oksala identifies the different interpretations of freedom in Foucault's philosophy and examines its three major divisions.

Foucault, Freedom and Sovereignty

Foucault, Freedom and Sovereignty
Author: Sergei Prozorov
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2016-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317133749

Against the prevailing interpretations which disqualify a Foucauldian approach from the discourse of freedom, this study offers a novel concept of political freedom and posits freedom as the primary axiological motif of Foucault's writing. Based on a new interpretation of the relation of Foucault's approach to the problematic of sovereignty, Sergei Prozorov both reconstructs ontology of freedom in Foucault's textual corpus and outlines the modalities of its practice in the contemporary terrain of global governance. The book critically engages with the acclaimed post-Foucauldian theories of Giorgio Agamben and Antonio Negri, thereby restoring the controversial notion of the sovereign subject to the critical discourse on global politics. As a study in political thought, this book will be suitable for students and scholars interested in the problematic of political freedom, philosophy and global governance.

The Foucault Effect

The Foucault Effect
Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 1991-07-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780226080451

Based on Foucault's 1978 and 1979 lectures on rationalities of government, this work examines the art or activity of government and the different ways in which it has been made thinkable and practicable. There are also contributions of other scholars exploring modern manifestations of government.

Foucault and the Politics of Rights

Foucault and the Politics of Rights
Author: Ben Golder
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2015-10-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804796513

This book focuses on Michel Foucault's late work on rights in order to address broader questions about the politics of rights in the contemporary era. As several commentators have observed, something quite remarkable happens in this late work. In his early career, Foucault had been a great critic of the liberal discourse of rights. Suddenly, from about 1976 onward, he makes increasing appeals to rights in his philosophical writings, political statements, interviews, and journalism. He not only defends their importance; he argues for rights new and as-yet-unrecognized. Does Foucault simply revise his former positions and endorse a liberal politics of rights? Ben Golder proposes an answer to this puzzle, which is that Foucault approaches rights in a spirit of creative and critical appropriation. He uses rights strategically for a range of political purposes that cannot be reduced to a simple endorsement of political liberalism. Golder develops this interpretation of Foucault's work while analyzing its shortcomings and relating it to the approaches taken by a series of current thinkers also engaged in considering the place of rights in contemporary politics, including Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Jacques Rancière.

The Government of Life

The Government of Life
Author: Vanessa Lemm
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2014-04-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0823255999

Foucault’s late work on biopolitics and governmentality has established him as the fundamental thinker of contemporary continental political thought and as a privileged source for our current understanding of neoliberalism and its technologies of power. In this volume, an international and interdisciplinary group of Foucault scholars examines his ideas of biopower and biopolitics and their relation to his project of a history of governmentality and to a theory of the subject found in his last courses at the College de France. Many of the chapters engage critically with the Italian theoretical reception of Foucault. At the same time, the originality of this collection consists in the variety of perspectives and traditions of reception brought to bear upon the problematic connections between biopolitics and governmentality established by Foucault’s last works.