Foucault Now

Michel Foucault is recognized as one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers, however the authors in this volume contend that more use can be made of Foucault than has yet been done and that some of the uses to which Foucault has so far been put run the risk of and occasionally simply amount to misuse. This interdisciplinary volume brings together a group of esteemed scholars, recognized for their command of and insights into Foucault's oeuvre. They demonstrate the many respects in which Foucault's project of an ontology of the present remains vital and continues to yield compelling insights and show that an ontology of the present is restricted to no particular terrain, but instead ranges widely and on paths that frequently intersect. The essays in this much-needed new collection address the key components of Foucault's thought, ranging from his approach to power, biopolitics and parrhesia to analysis of key texts such as Folie et Déraison and Histoire de la sexualité. This collection will spark debate amongst students and scholars alike and demonstrates that that every further encounter with Foucault's corpus is more likely than not to demand a revisiting of interpretations already formulated, conclusions already drawn, uses already devised. Contributors include Didier Eribon, Eric Fassin, John Forrester, Ian Hacking, Lynne Huffer, Colin Koopman, James Laidlaw, Laurence McFalls, Mariella Pandolfi, Paul Rabinow and Cary Wolfe.

Acknowledgements vii Contributors viii Abbreviations xiii Introduction: The Use of Foucault 1 James D. Faubion Part I: Object Lessons 1 The Undefined Work of Freedom: Foucault’s Genealogy and the Anthropology of Ethics 23 James Laidlaw 2 Déraison 38 Ian Hacking 3 Foucault’s Evil Genius 52 Lynne Huffer 4 Toward an Ethics of Subjectivation: French Resistances to Psychoanalysis in the 1970s 71 Didier Eribon 5 Michel Foucault’s Critical Empiricism Today: Concepts and Analytics in the Critique of Biopower and Infopower 88 Colin Koopman 6 Foucault’s Face: The Personal is the Theoretical 112 John Forrester Part II: Cases in Point 7 Biopower, Sexual Democracy, and the Racialization of Sex 131 Eric Fassin 8 “A New Schema of Politicization”: Thinking Humans, Animals, and Biopolitics with Foucault 152 Cary Wolfe 9 Parrhesia and Therapeusis: Foucault on and in the World of Contemporary Neoliberalism 168 Laurence McFalls and Mariella Pandolfi 10 Foucault, Marx, Neoliberalism: Unveiling Undercover Boss 188 Toby Miller 11 Assembling Untimeliness: Permanently and Restively 203 Paul Rabinow 12 Constantine Cavafy: A Parrhesiast for the Cynic of the Future 225 James D. Faubion References 243 Index 264