Search results for "Foucault"

Resisting Bodies: Power Crisis / Meaning Crisis in the Zombie Film from 1932 to Today

2011

Critics have repeatedly focused on the political subtexts of the living dead films of George A. Romero, revealing, notably, how they reflect specific social concerns. In order to determine what makes the zombie movie and the figure of the zombie so productive of political readings, this article examines, first, the classic zombie movies influenced by voodoo lore, then Romero’s initial living dead trilogy (1968-1985), and finally some of the most successful films released in the 2000s. Resorting to a post-structuralist framework including Althusser’s notions of state apparatuses, Foucault’s distinction between subjection and subjectification, and Butler’s analyses of subversive resignificati…

Client Self-Management: Promoting Self-Help for Parents of Children in Foster-Care

2016

Drawing upon Foucault's concepts of power, this article shows how a course given to parents whose children are in foster-care encourages a particular form of self-management—most notably, that their internal dialogues must be altered so that the parents can view themselves as people in control of their behaviour who are in a position to choose new behaviour. The article is based on a qualitative study conducted in Norway and centres on the support and development of participants in the course. Study results show increased self-confidence and self-respect in the participants, both as individuals and as parents. In addition, significant benefits were stated as finding that they could verbalis…

Michel Foucault and the enigmatic origins of bio-politics and governmentality

2012

Even a superficial look at the classical ideas and practices of government of populations makes it immediately apparent that there is a peculiarity in Foucault’s genealogy of western bio-politics and governmentality. According to Foucault, western governmental rationality can be traced back to the Judeo-Christian tradition in general and to the Christian ideology and practice of the pastorate in particular. In this article, my purpose is to show that Christianity was not the prelude to what Foucault calls governmentality but rather marked a rupture in the development that started in classical Greece and Rome and continued in early modern Europe. With the rise of Christianity, the majority …

Sources of governmentality

2012

The article scrutinizes Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Machiavelli in his famous lecture on governmentality. Foucault is slightly misguided in his search for the origins of governmentality, the article asserts. Foucault gives credit for the development of what he calls a new art of government to anti-Machiavellian treatises, but also follows those treatises in their distorted interpretation of Machiavelli. Consequently, Foucault’s analysis gets confused and regards as novel those arguments and developments that were essentially of ancient pedigree compared with Machiavelli’s ideas. The article discusses especially two points in Foucault’s interpretation of Machiavelli: Foucault’s insi…

Was Thomas Hobbes the first biopolitical thinker?

2023

Thomas Hobbes's name often comes up as scholars debate the history of biopower, which regulates the biological life of individual bodies and entire populations. This article examines whether and to what extent Hobbes may be regarded as the first biopolitical philosopher. I investigate this question by performing a close reading of Hobbes's political texts and by comparing them to some of the most influential theories on biopolitics proposed by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and others. Hobbes is indeed the first great thinker to assert the supreme political importance of safeguarding life. Furthermore, this prominence of non-contemplative life is not limited to mere su…

Spekülatif Materyalizmde Hümanizm Ve Post-Hümanizm

2018

Ernesto Laclau reading Michel Foucault : Foucault as a target for hegemony

2015

In contrast to the tendency of other presently celebrated post-structuralist intellectuals, such as Giorgio Agamben and up to a certain extent Judith Butler, who make persistent efforts to support their work through the provision of frequent references to the work of Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau, the first popular post-structuralist theorist on British soil, opted to provide only a few references to Foucault, which actually were not always equally approbatory of the latter’s work. By drawing attention to these few references, this article aims to thematize Laclau’s relationship with Foucault as a quite interesting case for the understanding of present-day flows in the exchange of ideas o…

Constructing the secular imagined community : a critical intercultural analysis of discourses of laïcité from Le Monde

2016

The concept of secularism encompasses numerous aspects beyond the regulation of relations between the State and Churches. Using a critical intercultural communication framework, this research project explores the interplay between secularism, culture, religion, identity, and collective representations. Specifically, this study focuses on laïcité, the concept of secularism used in France. Previous studies have criticized laïcité for being biased and contributing to inequalities between communities in France. The pervasive (and false) representation of laïcité as originally and exclusively French has also been criticized. In the light of the concerns raised by previous studies, this study set…

The noisy crowd: The politics of voice in Michel Foucault's final Collège de France lectures

2010

Divenire minoranza, il trattamento della follia in età borbonica. L’Ospizio di Santa Teresa di Palermo (XIX secolo)

2022

Interessanti spunti riguardanti il trattamento della follia si ricavano dal contesto siciliano all’inizio del XIX secolo, periodo in cui si perfeziona il controllo sociale da parte delle istituzioni. Nello specifico, si vuole qui proporre il caso dell’Ospizio di Santa Teresa di Palermo, l’ex noviziato dei Teresiani Scalzi poco fuori le mura della città di Palermo, istituto adibito nel 1802, durante il soggiorno forzato della corte borbonica in Sicilia e il protettorato inglese, al contenimento dei cosiddetti «incurabili», cioè di qualsiasi minaccia che potesse interferire o interagire con la società sana del tempo. Interesting insights into the treatment of madness are to be gained from the…