March 12, 2007
Pieces by Valverde and Rose
Here and here are the two pieces on Foucault by Valverde and Rose.
Security, Territory, Population
The blogs are already buzzing about the translation of the 1977-1978 College de France lectures, which still can only be pre-ordered from amazon. One blog entry from theoria – if you ignore the asinine homophobe (apparently an asinine Marxist homophobe, which, when you think about it, might not be much of a contradiction) who makes the first comment — makes the following observation, of utmost interest: “Among those who have had the opportunity to see STP in French, the general consensus appears to be that the whole Anglo-Foucauldian ‘governmentality’ and ‘history of the present’ project will have to be rethought in many of its essentials. If you read the entirety of Mariana’s article, I think you can see her trying to resist that rethinking in significant ways.”
Also note the extraordinary resistance in the comments to the idea that Foucault embraced any part of liberalism. Truly, the politics are those of the 19th century.
In any case, we should be thinking and tracking the reaction to these lectures as they come out. Volunteers? Collaborators?