Synopses & Reviews
Michel Foucaultandrsquo;s notion of andldquo;biopowerandrdquo; has been a highly fertile concept in recent theory, influencing thinkers worldwide across a variety of disciplines and concerns. In
The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Foucault famously employed the term to describe andldquo;a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them.andrdquo; With this volume, Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar bring together leading contemporary scholars to explore the many theoretical possibilities that the concept of biopower has enabled while at the same time pinpointing their most important shared resonances.
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Situating biopower as a radical alternative to traditional conceptions of powerandmdash;what Foucault called andldquo;sovereign powerandrdquo;andmdash;the contributors examine a host of matters centered on life, the body, and the subject as a living citizen. Altogether, they pay testament to the lasting relevance of biopower in some of our most important contemporary debates on issues ranging from health care rights to immigration laws, HIV prevention discourse, genomics medicine, and many other topics.and#160;
Review
"Foucault Beyond Foucault is the first major renovation of the critical representation of Foucault's system in the past twenty years. Jeffrey Nealon successfully challenges the critical prejudices and assumptions that have defined Foucault's legacy, particularly in the North American academy, and stakes out new terrain by productively synthesizing recent developments in political and economic theory with Foucault's own analysis of power and subjectivity in the age of "bio-power." In fact, this is the first book that manages to successfully explain the concept itself, a concept everyone is talking about, though no one seems to understand." Gregg Lambert, Syracuse University
Review
"In his slim volume on Foucault, [Nealon] has offered a fascinating interpretation of Foucault's work, one that brings to light previous neglected elements of his thought. Although the stated motivation for Nealon's discussion is to counter the current interpretation of Foucault's ethical works, the result is one of the most interesting interpretations of Foucault to emerge in many years."Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Synopsis
In
Foucault Beyond Foucault Jeffrey Nealon argues that critics have too hastily abandoned Foucault's mid-career reflections on power, and offers a revisionist reading of the philosopher's middle and later works. Retracing power's "intensification" in Foucault, Nealon argues that forms of political power remain central to Foucault's concerns. He allows us to reread Foucault's own conceptual itinerary and, more importantly, to think about how we might respond to the mutations of power that have taken place since the philosopher's death in 1984. In this, the book stages an overdue encounter between Foucault and post-Marxist economic history.
Synopsis
This book retraces power's intensification in Foucault in ways that both allow us to reread Foucault's own conceptual itinerary and, more importantly, to think about how we might respond to the mutations of power that that have taken place since his death in 1984.
Synopsis
The concept of biopower was popularized by French philosopher Michel Foucault in the late 20th century and employed by him throughout the latter part of his career.and#160;
Bio-pouvoir describes andldquo;a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them.andrdquo;and#160; This revolutionary concept of power marked, to greater and lesser degrees, Foucaultandrsquo;s published and unpublished works throughout the remainder of his life.
Biopower, however, is not a strictly Foucaultian motif; it has been a pervasive theme in much of 20th-century thought, found in the philosophies of Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri.and#160; Though much work has been done with the concept of biopower by various figures since Foucault, little has been done to unify the disparate themes and motifs currently being explored through the use of this concept.and#160; On display in this volume is the diversity of the uses of the concept as top scholars work here each in a unique way with the notion of biopower.
About the Author
Vernon W. Cisney is a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College. He is the author of Derridaandrsquo;s andldquo;Voice and Phenomenonandrdquo;: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide, as well as coeditor or cotranslator of several other books.and#160;Nicolae Morarand#160;is assistant professor of philosophy and environmental studies and an associate member with the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon. He is coeditor or co-translator of several books, includingand#160;Perspectives in Bioethics, Science and Public Policy.
Table of Contents
Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar
Introduction: Why Biopower? Why Now?
Part I : Origins of Biopower
Judith Revel
One / The Literary Birth of Biopolitics (translated by Christopher Penfield)
Antonio Negri
Two / At the Origins of Biopolitics (translated by Diana Garvin)
Ian Hacking
Three / Biopower and the Avalanche of Printed Numbers
Catherine Mills
Four / Biopolitics and the Concept of Life
Paul Patton
Five / Power and Biopower in Foucault
Part II : The Question of Life
Mary Beth Mader
Six / Foucault, Cuvier, and the Science of Life
Jeff T. Nealon
Seven / The Archaeology of Biopower: From Plant to Animal Life in The Order of Things
Eduardo Mendieta
Eight / The Biotechnological Scala Naturae and Interspecies Cosmopolitanism: Patricia Piccinini, Jane Alexander, and Guillermo Gandoacute;mez-Peandntilde;a
Part III : Medicine and Sexuality: The Question of the Body
Carlos Novas
Nine / Patient Activism and Biopolitics: Thinking through Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs
David M. Halperin
Ten / The Biopolitics of HIV Prevention Discourse
Jana Sawicki
Eleven / Precarious Life: Butler and Foucault on Biopolitics
Part IV : Neoliberalism and Governmentality: The Question of the Population
Todd May and Ladelle McWhorter
Twelve / Whoandrsquo;s Being Disciplined Now? Operations of Power in a Neoliberal World
Frandeacute;dandeacute;ric Gros
Thirteen / Is There a Biopolitical Subject? Foucault and the Birth of Biopolitics (translated by Samantha Bankston)
Martina Tazzioli
Fourteen / Discordant Practices of Freedom and Power of/over Lives: Three Snapshots on the Bank Effects of the Arab Uprisings
Part V : Biopower Today
Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose
Fifteen / Biopower Today
Ann Laura Stoler
Sixteen / A Colonial Reading of Foucault: Bourgeois Bodies and Racial Selves
Roberto Esposito
Seventeen / Totalitarianism and Biopolitics? Concerning a Philosophical Interpretation of the Twentieth Century (translated by Timothy Campbell)
Contributors
Index