Foucault

This paper takes as its starting point Homi Bhabha's explanation of culture and diversity in his essay The Location of Culture (1994), in which he denotes cultural meaning as existing in a transitional space between clashing cultures and, associatively, between competing histories. The cultural space to which Bhabha refers offers a path to a reinvention of the hybrid self (and nation) beyond the more restrictive parameters of what Foucault has termed "the inscribed surface of events" (Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" 344) that the body represents. With reference to Bhabha's delineation of spatial awareness and Foucault's observations of power discourse and the body as a site of knowledge and discursion but also as an inhibiting site of colonisation, and in light of previous English-language Malaysian fiction, I will examine the ways in which Tan Twan Eng (1972-) investigates the conundrum of memory and historical inscription, and his textual approach to the vexed questions of self-determinism and postcolonial agency in his novels, The Gift of Rain (2007) and The Garden of the Evening Mists (2012).

Enclosed is the syllabus and course notes from the upper division course I teach in PostModernism and Post-Marxist Critical Theory. It occurs to me that some of these essays--ranging from Horkheimer and Adorno, Baudrillard, Foucault, and the feminist post-modern theorist Donna Haraway may offer some insight and some tools for comprehending the dark times in which we live. While these essays may not be directly aimed at understanding the rise of phenomena like the Alt-Right, toxic masculinity, and particularly violent forms of patriarchy, I think they can show us something about the ideological trends that set us on out current morally troubling path.

In the introduction to the volume, the editors explain the overarching aim of the volume and contextualize the main themes of its chapters. Even if the notions of biopolitics and biopower have played a crucial role in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences over the last decades, they have been used in various and at times diverging senses, which has also produced different narratives about the history of biopolitics. The main aim of the volume is to clarify whether and to what extent the concept of biopolitics is applicable to antiquity. To answer such questions, the chapters collected in the volume address three main topics, namely the possible presence of biopolitical discourse in ancient thought, the extent to which the application of a biopolitical approach to ancient thought requires qualifications, and some influential contemporary interpretations of the relation between biopolitics and antiquity.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Tal como tendremos ocasión de revisar, son varios los autores que reconocen en la emoción del miedo uno de los aspectos que caracterizan y modelan nuestra contemporaneidad. Sin embargo, no es solamente tal prevalencia lo que nos interesa en este texto destacar. Más allá de visibilizar  algunas de las zonas en donde el miedo se manifiesta como una dimensión  ineludible de considerar al momento de describir cómo se ha venido estructurando nuestro entramado social, lo que nos parece relevante es señalar el lugar que el miedo ocupa dentro de las actuales agendas gubernamentales.
-Iván Pincheira, "Miedo", en Mary Luz Estupiñan (Ed.), El ABC del neoliberalismo, Viña del Mar, Communes, 2016, pp. 167-182.

Marx vislumbrou a ideia de simbiose entre atividade e produção do homem, mas o século XIX o fez canalizar o seu darwinismo e os seus conhecimentos de antropologia para a noção de trabalho. Não podia ser diferente. Assim, nos Manuscritos econômico filosóficos, ele chegou a escrever que toda a psicologia humana poderia ser compreendida a partir da fábrica.

Este trabalho se propõe a uma problematização de como se dá a deslegitimação de determinados modos de existência e as formas como certas identidades e orientações sexuais se tornam ilegítimas, inviabilizando, inclusive, a vida de determinados corpos, que são marcados como inferiores por estarem fora do padrão estabelecido socialmente. Para este objetivo geral, serão levadas em consideração as perspectivas teóricas de Michel Foucault e Judith Butler. Com o primeiro, estudaremos o conceito de “anormal”, focando mais precisamente nos sujeitos homossexuais; com a segunda, a ideia de “corpos que (não) importam”. O elo entre os dois balizadores teóricos constitui uma importante ferramenta da Teoria Queer no que concerne ao modo como ela compreende as violências que são direcionadas aos corpos de sexualidades desviantes.

A case is made for the necessity of an inter-disciplinary treatment of the migration phenomenon. The paper addresses the relation between migration and security from a reconciliatory perspective after a brief analysis of the migration-security nexus and how migration got securitised. Based on the Foucauldian notion of biopolitics, one can argue that what contributes heavily to the securitisation of migration is the emergence of biopower and biopolitics which are primarily concerned with the control over lives of the population within a given territory. This makes states and societies consider migration as a matter that should be under control, since it is related to the hygiene of the population and nationals of a given state. I, therefore, discuss the EU and other European countries' policies regarding migration and how biopolitics have influenced securitising the EU's migration policies. The main argument is that migration can, and should, be treated as an advantage rather than a threat, though it does not deny the security concerns that alway accompany such social phenomenon. The impact of culture and history on migration policies, and how identity politics shape a given country's policies are discussed. Perceiving migration as either a threat or an opportunity, the way in which a country perceives migrants shapes its migration policies, whether restrictive or multiculturally-tolerant.

Other bodies, other spaces is a fruit of the interactions between the Laboratory of Discourse Studies and the Body of the University of Southwest of state of Bahia - LABEDISCO / CNPq / UESB - and other research groups focusing on discursive studies on the body both in scope national and international levels. Here, literature and audiovisual materials present varied substrates for discussion of the body, as discourse, in its historical existence, as a material statute and in the reconfigurations of the subjects' positions.

Outros corpos, espaços outros é um fruto das interações entre o Laboratório de Estudos do Discurso e do Corpo da Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia – LABEDISCO/CNPq/UESB – e outros Grupos de Pesquisa com foco em estudos discursivos sobre o corpo tanto no âmbito nacional quanto no internacional. Aqui, literatura e materialidades audiovisuais apresentam variados substratos para discussão do corpo, enquanto discurso, em sua existência histórica, como estatuto material e nas reconfigurações dos posicionamentos dos sujeitos.

This paper aims to evaluate the viability of 'democratizing' eLearning within the global neoliberal economy. 'Democratization' is examined through several focus areas, namely the digital divide, socioeconomic status, gender, and social justice in curricula. These facets of 'democratization' are scrutinized specifically through corporate and university eLearning discourse, focusing principally on adult learners. The central objective is to determine to what extent eLearning can be 'democratized' for 21st century learners. The COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted eLearning to the forefront of education and has been urgently implemented globally across corporations, higher educational institutions, and K-12 schools. eLearning discourse has been imbued with terms such as 'accessibility', 'flexibility', and 'engagement'. The paper explores how these discourses could be reconstituted to live up to the promises of 'democratization&#39...

El gobierno de las grandes corporaciones (gubernamentalidad corporativa), conformado
históricamente, que fue transformando la sociedad en su conjunto, en un gobierno sobre
todos los demás, induciendo el desarrollo de una serie de aparatos del gobierno y de
saberes. Teniendo como eje central a la economía, que se materializa en el
neoliberalismo, y es a partir de 1971 con el abandono del patrón-oro, cuando esta nueva
gubernamentalidad comienza su periodo de consolidación.
En estos casi cincuenta años, se desarrolla de la mano de la gubernamentalidad
corporativa, la mayor desigualdad económica, una enorme precarización de la clase
trabajadora y el fuerte incremento de los costes sociales del capitalismo. Este trabajo
describe el proceso de concentración de la riqueza y sus efectos en la sociedad.
También en este periodo, se produce el desplazamiento del eje central del capitalismo y
de su sistema de apropiación, como lo fue el sistema de producción capitalista, por la
apropiación mediante el sistema financiero-monetario (apropiación indirecta). Junto al
traspaso de la planificación del Estado a manos de las empresas privadas.
Finalmente este artículo, describe las debilidades del actual sistema de apropiación
capitalista y el fin del imperio financiero angloamericano.

[published in Routledge's "Philosophy and Method in the Social Sciences" series]

This study starts from a simple premise:  human practices are a fundamental constituent — arguably “the” fundamental constituent — of social reality.  It then poses the following question:  What would social scientists’ research look like if they took this insight quite seriously?

That, of course, would depend on what practices are in fact like:  what their generic features are, how they are constituted, how they might be identified and characterised and explained, how they function in concrete contexts, how they might change across time and space.  These are the kinds of questions that this book tries to tackle, insisting that their answers hold important implications for the effective practice of social science.

The book thus attempts to build a philosophical infrastructure for the empirical study of practices in the social sciences and humanities.  At the same time, it also tries to explore the implications of this ontology of human practices for issues in social theory and in the philosophy of the social sciences.  The book thus stands at the intersection of the philosophy of social science, social theory, and the social sciences.

This paper conducts a comparative dispositif analysis of Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novella 'Heart of Darkness' and James Gray’s 2019 cinematic adaptation 'Ad Astra', in order to assess whether the imperial legacy implicit within the novella has continued into the contemporary world.

From the perspective of the Foucaultian approach and using the archaeological and genealogical methodology, this paper describes the origins of the first monetary institutions which are those that have the greatest impact on the development of the monetary system that took shape over time. The origin of the first central Banks, the gold standard system, the origins of the FED (Federal Reserve) and the birth of neoliberal governmentality, institutions whose conformation gave rise to the origins to, from a monetary standpoint, corporate governmentality. This document, of a historical, philosophical and economic character, describes relationships of power which shaped and defined the lines of development of a monetary system in conformation and is based on the concentration of wealth and the appropriation of income and their yields. The crisis, monetary shocks or monetary imbalances began to be more frequent and linked to the monetary conformation of institutions that give rise to the rising monetary system.

En este artículo realizamos un análisis de la última parte de la obra de Gabriela Liffschitz. En ella, la escritora y fotógrafa argentina elabora poéticamente una experiencia de cáncer de mama. Aquí, creemos, en primer lugar, que la enfermedad es vivida y entendida como un "acontecimiento", de acuerdo a los desarrollos teóricos de este concepto de autores como Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida o Alain Badiou. En segundo lugar, creemos que este hecho -la fidelidad al acontecimiento del cáncer- es el que habilita a la autora a construir una posición de resistencia frente a los dispositivos biomédicos y biopolíticos contemporáneos. Desde esta posición, en tercer lugar, Liffschitz impugna el efecto de individuación de dichos dispositivos y pone en juego una forma de "ser-en-común" que hace más habitable su vida y su enfermedad.

Although the sympathetic depiction of Otherness in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville is acknowledged to be indicative of the writer's celebrated tolerance, few critics have ventured to explore how Mandeville creates it. Yet his presentation of the Other is as much a product of his cultural openness as it is the result of a conscious process of careful psychological negotiation of difference in which the text engages with the reader via the medium of the Mandeville persona. The Other is imagined so convincingly by this fourteenth-century writer that he endows it with a complex existence of its own which transcends what Ian Macleod Higgins calls a 'self-critical mirror'. Foucault's notion of 'transgression' proves instrumental in elucidating the way in which Mandeville erects his image of the Other and then, by employing a number of examples, how the text and the language of The Travels convey this 'transgression'. The second aprt of the article evaluates Mandeville's categories of perception by comparing them with the cognitive paradigms expressed by his sources and some of his contemporaries.

• Abstract: In this article I use Foucault's theory of power to explain children's presence on the streets. I argue that resistance to be subject of family power and to be subject of the power exercised in shelters or governmental institutions is not the only struggle in which participates a child that decides to stay living on the streets. Subsistence is difficult; resources are scare. Children need power to survive, to protect themselves, to stay. Therefore, permanence cannot take place without a minimum amount of power. I find that, when children are on the streets and are given an option, they establish a balance between the street and previous experiences outside the streets. But, not all children have an option or the possibility of exercising that option. My main aim is to understand the reasons why a child stays living on the streets even when she has to face situations as problematic as the situations confronted while living in their home or in a shelter.

Both Foucault and Deleuze define ethics as a form of creative activity. Yet, given certain ontological features indicated by both thinkers, ethics must be more than just creative and critical activity. Forgoing a transcendent ground for ethics, the ontological condition of ethics -what Foucault calls liberté and Deleuze calls the plane of immanence -is an opening for change that makes possible normalizing modes of existence as well transformative ones. In this context, ethics must be a practice that comprehends the dangers of such open-ended creation. The concept of problematization, emphasized by Foucault and Deleuze, leads to an enhanced understanding of their conception of ethics. On this understanding, ethics is a practice of problematization requiring a determination and assessment of the most pressing problems to which one must respond rather than attempt to solve once and for all. Ethics is necessarily a responsive engagement with the problems of one's present.

The vast majority of what has been written about the monetary system and its theories was developed when money was totally or partially backed by some type of merchandise. At present, commodity money no longer exists, only debt money. This paper addresses money from its transition to the current situation, through this 'manifesto of money', for the construction of a new theoretical framework that adapts to the current reality and adopting money as a real medium of exchange. This paper uses the methodology of historical review and of existing power relations in this historical moment in time called the archaeological and genealogical methodology by Foucault. Using this tool, a review of the related economic literature is made and the incongruities of the current monetary system are described. The central axis of this work is the 'neutrality of money' which is used to develop a proposal for a national currency and a proposal for an international exchange currency as the basis for the construction of a new model.

In: Matraga, v. 22, n. 37, Rio de janeiro, 2015, p. 79-97. ISSN: 2446-6905. http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/matraga.2015.19932.
Resumo: O que é um autor? Essa questão foi posta em 1969 por Michel Foucault e permanece ainda hoje sem uma clara resposta. Com as novas transformações no exercício da função-autor promovidas, sobretudo, pela internet e pelos meios digitais, a questão do estatuto da autoria parece ganhar ainda mais destaque. Afinal, o que restará da figura moderna do autor? Procurando contribuir para novas investigações nesse domínio, proponho neste artigo retomar as reflexões de Foucault no sentido de fixar algumas importantes balizas e de oferecer um quadro mais amplo e aprofundado da questão da autoria, articulando-a com três grandes temas da tradição filosófica: o discurso, o sujeito e o poder.

Este artículo intenta pensar la relación del juego, el mito y la educación en el pensamiento filosófico griego antiguo. Una versión "pervertida" -en el mejor sentido deleuziano- de cómo las tradiciones antiguas, a partir de sus enseñanzas mitológicas, provocaban una profundidad sensible en la actividad pedagógica, que se ha diluido en las versiones racionalistas letradas de las posteriores formas de enseñanza.

In this essay, I take as a starting point Foucault's rejection of two different ways of thinking about the future, prophecy and utopianism, and use this rejection as a basis for the elaboration of a more detailed rejection of them, invoking complexity-based epistemic limitations in relation to thinking about the future of political society. I follow Foucault in advocating immanent political struggle, which does not seek to build a determinate vision of the future but rather focuses on negating aspects of the current conjuncture. I extend this argument into an ethical register, arguing that the same arguments apply mutatis mutandis to our personal lives. I conclude by engaging with Jacques Lacan's account of subjectivity, and the interpretation of its political import furnished by Yannis Stavrakakis, drawing from these additional supports for my position, in particular the rejection of utopianism as an attempt to avoid limitation by the real.

Very brief analysis of childhood behavior shows that such combinations as histrionic play, bluff, playful threat, teasing play in response to threat, histrionic threat, and so on form together a single total complex of phenomena. And such adult phenomena as gambling and playing with risk have their roots in the combination of threat and play.

En la sociedad de la transparencia se pasa de un sujeto de control propio de las sociedades disciplinarias, a un sujeto de rendimiento (Han, 2010), cuyo lema es "yo puedo". A diferencia del modelo anterior, en el que predominaba el "no debes", en esta el sujeto basa su realización en una positividad excesiva, en la que se cree que el individuo es capaz de todo y no hay límites. La producción de subjetividad se centra en el quehacer acelerado e imparable, lo cual genera toda una serie de patologías como los trastornos de personalidad, el burnout (síndrome del trabajador quemado o agotado), el TDAH, y la depresión.

El trabajo busca desarrollar y contraponer las formas de entender las topologías de la dominación social y de la configuración de las subjetividades por parte de  Norbert Elías y Michael Foucault. Para ello, primero se presentará la propuesta de Elías en base al proceso civilizatorio, en la cual sus conceptualizaciones sobre la interdependencia social sostenida en sociogénesis y psicogénesis afectan a los individuos desde la cima de la pirámide social y desde dentro de los sujetos, configurando por ello un esquema topológico “arriba-adentro” de poder. Luego, se abordará la idea foucaultiana de dispositivo, buscando bosquejar en este caso algunos puntos generales sobre su teoría del poder, en la cual con su mirada de base microfísica y descentrada sobre la subjetividad, configura un esquema topológico “abajo-afuera” de dominación, muy distinto al de Elías. Por último, el trabajo cerrará con algunas conclusiones que nos permitan precisar las diferencias y convergencias de los autores analizados.

This chapter examines the conspiratorial actions that control the movement of female bodies throughout The Handmaid’s Tale and will contend that the ultimate conspiracy of the novel is one through which men’s cultural insecurities about virility and control are projected onto the flesh of the novel’s women. More specifically, by disarticulating and objectifying women’s bodies, dividing them by function, and alienating them from individual subjectivity, the paternalistic fathers of Gilead conspire to obscure the truth about male infertility, reviving the myth of woman’s bodily excess to erase failures in traditional masculinity.

O presente artigo busca analisar de que modo os problemas da segurança e da economia das punições passam a ser centrais no cálculo político-econômico da racionalidade neoliberal. Como propõe Michel Foucault em seu curso Nascimento da Biopolítica, de 1979, a tecnologia de governo neoliberal conceberia o aparato estatal como “efeito móvel de um regime de governamentalidades múltiplas”. É o
enfoque econômico, portanto, que permitirá pôr à prova a eficácia da ação governamental, a partir da avaliação do custo-benefício das intervenções na esfera do mercado e da sociedade, conforme a proposição dos teóricos neoliberais. Essa crítica mercantil direciona-se ao que é concebido como “dispêndio” das ações econômicas do poder público, dado que o mercado se torna “uma espécie de tribunal econômico permanente em face do governo”, como sugere Foucault. Nesse cenário, no qual se ampliam as demandas punitivas, a eficiência de atuação do sistema de justiça criminal dos Estados será medida pela avaliação do mercado e da economia, tendo em vista os seus efeitos. Tratar-se-á, então, de refletir sobre o funcionamento do poder punitivo em moldes econômicos, isto é, pela via da problematização dos custos da delinquência e dos modos de torná-los o menos dispendioso possível e com a máxima eficiência.
________

This article analyzes how the problems of security and economy of punishment are
central to the political and economic calculation of neoliberal rationality. As Michel
Foucault proposes in his course of 1979, Birth of Biopolitics, neoliberal government
technology would conceive the state apparatus as “the mobile effect of a regime of
multiple governmentalities”. It is the economic approach, therefore, that will allow to
test the effectiveness of governmental action, from the evaluation of the cost-benefit of interventions in the sphere of the market and society, according to the proposition of
neoliberal theorists. This mercantile critique is directed to what is conceived as
“expenditure” of the economic actions of the public power, since the market becomes “a sort of permanent economic tribunal confronting government”, as Foucault suggests. In this scenario, in which the punitive demands are amplified, the efficiency of the criminal justice system of the states will be measured by the market and economic evaluation, with the objective of their effects. It will then be a question of reflecting on the functioning of punitive power in an economic way, that is to say, by means of problematizing the costs of delinquency and ways of making them the least expensive possible and with maximum efficiency.

Welche gesellschaftspolitischen Interessen stehen hinter der prominenten Forderung »Integration durch Sprache«? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, zeigt Mi-Cha Flubacher die Entstehungsbedingungen und Konsequenzen dieses Diskurses in der Schweiz auf, den sie aus kritisch soziolinguistischer Perspektive und in Anlehnung an Foucaults Diskursverständnis analysiert. Der Deutschschweizer Kanton Basel-Stadt dient dabei als Fallbeispiel föderaler Strukturen in der Integrationspolitik. Untersucht werden unter anderem die Entstehungsprozesse des nationalen sowie kantonalen Gesetzesartikels (»Sprachartikel«), in denen sich dieser Diskurs materialisiert, und Interviews mit ExpertInnen und AkteurInnen in Basel-Stadt. Die Analyse deckt die in Politik und Gesellschaft vorhandenen Ideologien zur Sprache und Gesellschaft auf und regt eine Diskussion zur Funktion dieses Diskurses und der damit zusammenhängenden Legislation an.

The discourse that language is the key to integration has gained momentum all over Europe, including in Switzerland, where language regulations have been introduced to integration policies, thus tightening conditions for migrants. This becomes evident in the legal materialization of the discourse in the form of “language articles” in the national law on the foreign population and in the cantonal law of integration in Basel-Stadt. This discourse, referred to as “integration through language”, is critically analyzed in this publication with the aim to understand its conditions of their emergence, its broader societal role and political function. The analysis is based on a critical sociolinguistic perspective and on a Foucauldian understanding of discourse. It draws 1) on documents and recordings related to the law drafting processes on the national level and on the cantonal level of Basel-Stadt, and 2) on interviews with experts and actors mainly from Basel-Stadt. It is shown how the discourse is based on ideologies of language and society, on the basis of which a discussion on the function of this very discourse is launched.

This study examines the power relations found in Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ films. Since 2005, Lanthimos has been making films that left his mark on art cinema. Despite the inevitable rise of the director – especially since Dogtooth (2009) – there are few studies on Lanthimos. Existing studies either focus on only one film or deal with him within the Greek New (Weird) Wave movement. However, even if the director came out of this movement, his films have a unique artistic style. The director presents us with various representations of power by using interpersonal relationships in his films. He accomplishes this by using elements from his one-of-a-kind cinematographic, thematic and narrative perspective. These films, in which bodies under authority are shown to us utilizing an absurdist narrative, distinguish Lanthimos from other filmmakers. There are no academic studies on the concept of power that is frequently used in Lanthimos’ films. In this study, this deficiency is solved and the relations of power found in the cinema of Yorgos Lanthimos are analyzed using the Foucauldian method of analysis and in light of the thinker’s concepts such as docile bodies, discipline, control, bio-power and sovereign power.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17411548.2021.1921932

Nietzsche and Foucault offer radical articulations of the ‘death of God’ in its critical-negative import for religion. However, the resources their thought contains for the elaboration of a positive conception of the nature of religion premised on the same epochal development has received less attention. This piece sketches a nascent conception of such a post-theistic account of the nature of religion by bringing into dialogue aspects of Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s respective ontologies of power and critical interrogations of religion (particularly Christianity). Drawing on aspects of both philosopher’s thought an emerging hybrid – an immanent religion of power itself – will be outlined. The perspective sketched cross-fertilizes aspects of both Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s genealogies of religion to propose an affirmative conception of the relation between religion and power that contests both notions of the infinite power of the transcendent and anthropocentric analyses of the power of specific religious institutions, values and practices. Focusing on Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s respective genealogies of Christian values and practice, as elaborated in their accounts of the ‘ascetic priest’ and ‘pastoral power’ respectively, a possible turn from the socio-political ‘reduction’ of religions of the transcendent to the emergence of the immanent religion of power itself is proposed.

Even though the legitimizing intents of both the modern penitentiary and the archive—the latter understood as the physical deposit of memory—are radically different, could the principles central to their founding discourses and eventual consequences be similar? Opened in 1900, Lecumberri Palace is, in the morphological sense, a modern penitentiary, the material result of an Occidentalization of dominant discourse. During its lifetime it has housed both types of institutions. It initially served as the Mexico City Penitentiary and is currently Mexico’s General National Archive (AGN, by its acronym in Spanish), both institutions perceived as attempts to Enlighten a Nation. Through the analysis of operations carried out in both facilities and with the help of Michel Foucault’s writings on discipline and domination, Jacques Derrida’s work on the concept of the archive, and existing historiography on Lecumberri Palace, this article proposes the possibility that both the archive and the penitentiary are doomed in as much as they both suffer the same ailment. Could Derrida’s Archive Fever also be rightfully called Penitentiary Fever?

Michel Foucault's early writing on dreams and imagination is one of the often neglected aspects of his work. In this paper, I give an overview of his "Dreams, Imagination and Existence" essay, accompanied by a discussion of his writings on art and its role as a technique of existence.

La recherche porte sur les différentes pratiques et perceptions des consommateurs, employés et managers par rapport à la double question de l'exclusivité/exclusion et de la démocratisation du luxe. Pour étudier l'inaccessibilité symbolique du lieu de vente compris comme un dispositif de pouvoir, nous utilisons les deux concepts foucaldiens d'objectivation et subjectivation que nous complétons avec la sociologie de l'habitus. Nous reprenons ici la perspective des micro-pouvoirs, agencés dans la forme multidimensionnelle du dispositif pour poser notre question de recherche : comment le dispositif concret du magasin peut-il organiser simultanément une fonction de tri, d'objectivation du statut (sélection et exclusion) et de subjectivation des individus (accessibilité, éducation et transformation) susceptible de réformer leur habitus ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons mis en place une étude ethnographique comprenant des observations de magasins, une netnographie, et des entretiens avec 29 experts et managers de marque et 24 consommateurs occasionnels ou réguliers. Ils ont permis d'approfondir les données issues des observations et faire préciser par les acteurs le sens de leur action. De ce terrain émergent plusieurs catégories de résultats. L'inaccessibilité des magasins de luxe est nécessaire pour garantir l'expérience exclusive des clients : alors que la rareté apparaît au coeur de la définition du luxe, la réalité d'un marché largement « démocratisé » crée des tensions sur ce modèle. La rareté peut être maintenue dans les éléments du marketing mix et en particulier sur le point de vente, principal point de contact avec le client. Nous observons que pour maintenir l'exclusivité de la marque de luxe, les marques se présentent comme physiquement et symboliquement inaccessibles. Les expériences en magasins s'accompagnent de la découverte et de l'apprentissage de la culture de la marque, les consommateurs acquièrent de nouvelles compétences et changent de statut. A travers un « dispositif narratif », ils accumulent du capital symbolique, ils s'initient et améliorent leurs savoirs, ils comprennent les codes du luxe et de la marque, mais également des éléments de culture générale (capital culturel légitime) et de capital social. Ce transfert de pouvoir-savoir accompagne leur itinéraire dans la proposition de marque (les différentes gammes, les différents magasins) et les place en meilleure position hiérarchique dans les rapports sociaux. En tant que connaisseurs, ils acquièrent également un traitement exclusif de la part des marques.

If spirit is constituted through recognition, then the fact that recognition somehow depends on (first) nature – as I will argue in the first part of this paper – will have deep consequences on how we are to conceive the genesis and the structure of the social and historical world, and the very notion of social freedom that participating in this world makes possible. Secondly, I will argue that even at the spiritual level recognition cannot be conceived on its own terms, but must rather be thought by means of the notions of second nature and habit. The move from recognition to second nature implies a dialectical embodied notion of freedom.  Finally, in the third part of the paper I will argue that, once we understand recognition in terms of embodied second nature, then we have to take into account how much the contingency, the fragility and the plurality of second nature affect our notion of freedom.

From Foucault’s perspective, “power is woven into the very fabric of everyday social interaction” and it is further highlighted by social class which then makes measuring the exercise of power somewhat more difficult to measure because there is an increased focus on the subject as opposed to the concept of power. This is because it seems to be an “invisible force” for it is dispersed and pervasive. “Power is everywhere” (Foucault 1998) as it comes from the bottom up. This notion means that power is an inbuilt part of all societal institutions and because of the relationships people have through interaction, “everybody exercises power in one way or another”, albeit through resistance or gaining there is still that relation of power; ergo leaving leeway for the hold to be modified. Besides, Foucault revokes the notion of power being repressive, rather he argued that “power produces” and that power which requires force “reveals the absence of the dull internalised routine of obedience” (John Dearlove et al 2000). Thus supporting the earlier arguments of routinised power as being primary but also reveals how difficult it is to measure such exercise of power because it is everywhere. Perhaps, power being difficult to measure could be seen as positive because it is a necessary part of society.