November 2008
6 posts
Society Must Be Defended: From Sovereignty to...
This response is an attempt to situate the final lecture within the course summary for the 1975-76 lectures given at the College du France. These lectures are specifically noteworthy in their tracing of a genealogy of force relations; how the traditional form of power as sovereignty became a decidedly modern biopower. Lecture 10 ended with the Third Estate emerging as the nation as a totality at...
Society Must Be Defended: Response #2: The...
Foucault engaged in historical analysis to in order to reveal a particular mode of thought (episteme) for a period. An unearthed episteme contains the conditions (beliefs or principles) that enable a particular force relation to obtain between various groups. But while an episteme may contain the conditions of possibility (the norms of a society, the possibilities of action within a system) it...
Technology is a service, not a product.
Society Must Be Defended: Response #1 History as...
By speaking of “Historical Discourse”, Foucault seems to be engaging with something much broader, and altogether different, than our common understanding of “History”. This common understanding - as often coupled with “language” in defining the boundaries of nationhood - seems definitive in its use: history, as in our shared history - something uncontested. ...
Foucault and the Quiet Revolution - Part One.
As a Quebec resident, I have been living in Montreal for three years. I first heard of the Quiet Revolution from a school friend, who mentioned it as a very significant cultural movement; she was surprised that I had never heard of it.
This semester I’m taking a class on Foucault. It has some title like “Politics of the Body” or “Bio-Politics” - I can’t...
