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Reblogged from Stockerblog:

This post refers back to the last post, and particularly the post before that which is inaugurated this sequence of posts on law over legislation. The last paragraph of that first post refers to Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, referring to the need to detail further what is briefly in that paragraph.

The issue is whether we can talk about law as something distinct from, and superior to, legislation.

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Article in national newspaper  O GLOBO, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

PUC-Rio debate palestras de Michel Foucault no Brasil 40 anos depois

  • Filósofo francês causou frisson em ciclo de conferências realizada em plena ditadura, na Gávea
  • Livro sobre o evento de 1973, “A verdade e as formas jurídicas” vai ser relançado em colóquio realizado hoje e amanhã na PUCImprimir

Karine Rodrigues (Email · Facebook · Twitter)

Publicado: 7/05/13 – 7h00
 
Filósofo pediu "cachê mínimo” para fazer conferências no Brasil Foto: Arquivo - 11/05/1996

Filósofo pediu “cachê mínimo” para fazer conferências no Brasil Arquivo – 11/05/1996

RIO – Se fosse verão, com o Píer de Ipanema fazendo as vezes de cenário, a sunga usada pelo filósofo Michel Foucault, em maio de 1973, poderia ter antecipado o estardalhaço causado, em 1980, pela tanga de crochê do ex-deputado Fernando Gabeira no Posto Nove. O francês, porém, chegou ao Rio no outono e escolheu as areias do Leme para mergulhar os pés. E, assim, passou desapercebido.

Já o ciclo de conferências que ele fez à época, na PUC-Rio, causou frisson e produziu um valioso debate em um período de silenciamento forçado pela ditadura militar. Quarenta anos depois, a universidade da Gávea promove um colóquio, hoje e amanhã, com entrada franca, para discutir os reflexos daqueles cinco dias de troca com um dos grandes pensadores da contemporaneidade, morto em 1984, aos 57 anos, em decorrência de complicações causadas pela AIDS.

Então chefe do Departamento de Letras e Artes da PUC-Rio, o escritor Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna fez o convite ao filósofo, que o aceitou prontamente, mas lembra que, até o último momento, não se sabia se Foucault compareceria ao evento:

— O SNI (Serviço Nacional de Informações) e o Dops (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social) faziam uma certa pressão. Havia muitos boatos de que, talvez, o SNI não o deixaria falar. Vivíamos, afinal, em um regime de repressão. E o Departamento de Letras, ainda assim, estava fazendo uma revolução, pois a vinda de Foucault fazia parte de um programa muito amplo, por meio do qual a PUC virou um lugar de debate. E Foucault veio para falar sobre a verdade, uma coisa que incomodava.

Rest of article

 

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A new blog titled Foucaultblog  has recently been established at the University of Zurich. Contributions are in German, French and English.

Editorial

The thought and intellectual praxis of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) are a reference of unbroken fascination for a vast number of scholarly, artistic, and political projects. Even now, almost thirty years after his death, new interviews with and lectures by the French philosopher and historian are being published; even now, his work remains neither categorized nor “grasped”; even now, we find that it remains full of surprises; and even now, his texts, therefore, invite new and renewed readings and his thought invites further thought.

Often, however, “Foucault” appears not merely as an unavoidable but also as an almost overpowering reference, bolstered by a doxa that believes it knows its maître à penser and tends to deform Foucault’s though, which is both flexible and sustained by its own contemporaneity, into a type of doctrine. To be sure, Foucault is far from being “dead”, yet at the same time a certain historicization—that is, a careful look at Foucault’s past present—may provide a means of escaping the dogmatic constriction of his reception.

This foucaultblog lends itself to both: unabashed fascination and cool historicization. It aspires to achieve this twofold objective by reflecting in a short, concise manner on the breadth and diversity of references to Foucault, as well as on research about Foucault—and thereby invite further critical thought. The foucaultblog is intended as an open forum for anyone who has not finished with Foucault.

We, the publishers of the foucaultblog, are historians and cultural researchers from Zurich, Munich, Vienna, and Paris involved in various projects with and about Foucault, without always agreeing on Foucault. This candidness should also shape the foucaultblog. We welcome any texts that contribute to such a debate.

Zurich, 1 April 2013.

With thanks to Margaret Kettle for this link

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brossatLe racisme comme technologie de pouvoir
26 février 2013 par Alain Brossat

Ici et Ailleurs site

Plutôt que tenter de résumer mon livre, Autochtone imaginaire, étranger imaginé Retours sur la xénophobie ambiante, ce qui est évidemment l’exercice le plus douteux qui soit (ce qui se résume aisément ne vaut généralement pas grand chose), je vais m’essayer à en redéployer le motif central en repartant d’un des deux auteurs qui y occupent la place des saints patrons – Foucault (l’autre étant Benjamin).

Dans le cours du 17 mars 1976 (« Il faut défendre la société »), Foucault propose un développement tout à fait lumineux sur ce qu’il appelle « le racisme », sur sa fonction dans l’exercice des pouvoirs modernes. Il se pose une question toute simple : comment un pouvoir dont l’objet et l’objectif premier et dernier est « la vie », l’entretien de la vie des populations, la majoration, l’optimisation, la multiplication des chances de « la vie », comment un tel pouvoir peut-il se manifester encore en tuant, en réclamant la mort, en l’administrant, en exposant à la mort non seulement ses ennemis, mais aussi ses propres citoyens ou ressortissants ? Jusqu’ici, je paraphrase Foucault, mais maintenant, je vais le citer : « Comment peut-il laisser mourir, ce pouvoir qui a essentiellement pour objectif de faire vivre ? Comment exercer le pouvoir de la mort, comment exercer la fonction de la mort, dans un système politique centré sur le bio-pouvoir ? » – c’est-à-dire en rupture distincte avec le vieux régime de souveraineté, régime immémorial, dans lequel, pour Foucault, la puissance du souverain se manifeste en premier lieu par sa capacité de faire mourir ? Eh bien, dit Foucault, « c’est là (…) qu’intervient le racisme ». Bien sûr, précise-t-il tout de suite, le racisme (concept un peu « porte-manteau » ou « valise », en l’occurrence, mais peu importe), ne date pas d’hier et n’est pas l’invention des pouvoirs modernes. « Il existait depuis bien longtemps », note-t-il. Mais ce qui est nouveau, dans nos sociétés, c’est la façon dont il est entré dans les mécanismes de l’Etat dès lors qu’a émergé le bio-pouvoir. Il est, dans les sociétés modernes (les nôtres, du moins, en Occident), coextensif à l’exercice du pouvoir dont il est, dit Foucault, un « mécanisme fondamental ».

suite

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From John Protevi on the New APPS blog

Foucault’s nostalgia?

One of the students in my Foucault class yesterday called Jouy (from the notorious pages 31-32 of the English version of History of Sexuality, Vol 1) “the first child molestor.” I agreed with that, insofar as, roughly speaking, Foucault claims that something like an ancestor of our category of “child molestor” was formed at that time, as the sexuality of children and “abnormals” like Jouy becomes the focus of intensified power / knowledge practices. But prior to that, Foucault would have us believe, no one really cared about the sort of thing that went on in the incident Foucault presents in HS1.Two points are relevant here.

read more….

With thanks to Dirk Felleman for this link

 

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Philippe Theophanidis on his blog Aphelis links to a complete recording on youtube (as yet unsubtitled) of the Foucault-Chomsky debate and provides detailed background on the history of the recording and the various versions and publications of the transcript.

The Chomsky-Foucault Debate On Human Nature, New York: The New Press, 2006, pp. 57-58. Content of the transcript differs from the actual recording.

The video displayed [...] is a complete 1 hour 11 minutes video recording of the original television program titled “Menselijke Natuur En Ideale Maatschappij” (“Human Nature and Ideal Society”). It took place in November 1971 at the Eindhoven University of Technology, in Nederland, as part of the “International Philosophers Project”. It was recorded and broadcast by the Dutch National Television. The video includes opening credits, an introduction by Prof. L. W. Nauta, the entrance of Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, the debate itself moderated by Dutch philosopher Fons Elders, a period of discussion with the audience and end credits. It was uploaded by user withDefiance on Feb. 25, 2013. [UPDATE–May 3, 2013] A “Proper Subtitles” version with English subtitles for the Dutch and French parts was completed on May 3, 2013. The video was also edited to adjust its actual running time (i.e. to get rid of the 14 minutes of black at the end of it). The video embedded above was updated accordingly.

It’s important to stress out that this is a complete recording of the television program and not of the debate itself. On the television program, the debate was interrupted by Prof. L. W. Nauta for commentary and parts were edited out. Therefor, there are large sections of the available transcript (which was published by Fons Elders in 1974) that are not included in the complete video recording of the television program.

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You may be interested in checking out some of the Foucault related posts on
New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science. A group blog with people from all over the map.

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Barry Stocker has recently been publishing a number of interesting posts on Foucault’s recently published lectures. There are also some interesting posts on a project on Foucault and liberty

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Diogo Sardinha, Le livre imaginaire, ou comment oublier une leçon de Foucault.
7 décembre 2012, site Ici et Ailleurs

Une réponse de Diogo Sardinha à la critique de son livre Ordre et temps dans la philosophie de Foucault par Alain Brossat. Cf l’article : ” lectures de Foucault “.

Dans la critique, aussi généreuse par sa longueur que déconcertante par son contenu, qu’Alain Brossat fait de mon livre Ordre et temps dans la philosophie de Foucault, il m’impute des idées qui me sont pour le moins étrangères, pour ne pas dire qu’elles correspondent parfois, et même souvent, à l’exact opposé non seulement de ce que je pense, mais encore de ce que j’ai écrit. Réfléchissant au contenu de son texte, et passée une certaine stupeur initiale, je me rends compte qu’il contient des contresens qui prennent une telle l’ampleur, qu’ils donnent vite l’impression que ce n’est pas de mon ouvrage qu’il est question, mais d’un autre. Au début, je me suis demandé si Alain Brossat avait vraiment lu ce que j’ai écrit, ou bien s’il s’était contenté d’y chercher ce qu’il avait trouvé déjà, avant même d’ouvrir le volume. J’ai ensuite cru comprendre qu’il me juge d’après des intentions qu’il m’attribue, au lieu de me juger par mes analyses, ce qui, à la fin, m’a poussé à me poser une question : pour quelle raison n’a-t-il pas « pu » me lire, mais a plutôt été victime d’une sorte d’obstacle qui s’est interposé entre son regard et mon ouvrage ? Ce sont ces aspects que je m’efforcerai d’éclaircir dans les lignes qui suivent.

suite

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Below John Protevi on the New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science blog

For other comments on the subject of gun control in the USA also referring to Foucault, see also post by Firmin DeBrabander on The New York Times opinion pages.

A Foucaultian analysis of framing gun violence as a public health issue

Doug Henwood, author of the wonderful book Wall Street, editor of the Left Business Observer, and blogger at LBO-News, recently broadcast a phone interview with Mark Ames,  author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond, on the history of rampage killings, up to and including the Newtown massacre. Toward the end of the interview Henwood claims that right wing anti-gun control fits explicitly into their coherent political philosophy of competitive / possessive individualism, but that neoliberal Democrats can’t admit their neoliberalism (that is, their own competitive individualism) and so flounder about looking for a rationale for their gun control efforts.

The mention of neoliberalism reminded me that a week or two ago I briefly discussed Bernard Harcourt’s seminar in which François Ewald, alongside Gary Becker himself, discussed Foucault’s reading of Becker’s human capital theory. Ewald is a specialist in social risk management and has written extensively on the history of insurance in France.

Bringing the two together I’m going to try to work out a Foucaultian reading of the strategy in which Democrats pose gun-control legislation under the rubric of handling public health or public safety risks.

more

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