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News and resources on French thinker Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

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Nick Gallent, Menelaos Gkartzios, Mark Scott, Andrew Purves (Eds), Postcapitalist Countrysides. From commoning to community wealth building, UCL Press, 2025 Open access Postcapitalist Countrysides explores the tensions that arise from the established […]

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<p><a href="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gallent.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-25905" height="300" src="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/gallent.jpg?w=200" width="200" /></a><strong>Nick Gallent, Menelaos Gkartzios, Mark Scott, Andrew Purves (Eds), <em><a href="https://uclpress.co.uk/book/postcapitalist-countrysides/" target="_blank">Postcapitalist Countrysides. From commoning to community wealth building</a></em>, UCL Press, 2025</strong></p> <p>Open access</p> <p><em>Postcapitalist Countrysides</em> explores the tensions that arise from the established conventions of economic production and private accumulation, as they affect life, wealth and work in rural areas. Its premise is that capitalism, as we experience it today, is incapable of solving key societal challenges – centred on social justice and sustainable livelihoods. By rethinking land, capital and labour relationships, postcapitalism offers glimpses of alternative modes of socio-economic organisation, achievable through local pre-figurative actions today and scalable through structural supports in the future. The glimpses of hopeful futures offered in this collection focus on rural places, communities and economies.</p> <p><strong>1 The postcapitalist countryside</strong><br /> Nick Gallent, Andrew Purves, Menelaos Gkartzios and Mark Scott</p> <p><strong>Part I: Private land enclosure and public commoning</strong></p> <p>2 Land and rent in capitalist production<br /> Andrew Purves, Nick Gallent, Menelaos Gkartzios and Mark Scott<br /> 3 From enclosure to commoning<br /> Andre Pusey<br /> 4 Postcapitalist trajectories, beyond land<br /> Menelaos Gkartzios</p> <p><strong>Part II: Commoning processes and experiences</strong></p> <p>5 Postcapitalist struggles and the ‘gift of land’<br /> Franklin Obeng-Odoom<br /> 6 Experimental food commons in capitalist heartlands<br /> Adam Calo<br /> 7 Making a postcapitalist countryside? Community landownership in Scotland<br /> Madhu Satsangi and Andrew Purves<br /> 8 Community landownership: means and outcomes – experiences of community acquisition processes in Scotland<br /> Annie McKee, Jayne Glass, Anna Lawrence and Robert Mc Morran<br /> 9 ‘Back to the land’: evaluating One Planet Development as a planning mechanism for promoting alternative forms of rural living<br /> Neil Harris<br /> 10 Rural women’s business-led commoning in Mexico and Japan: A transnational feminist analysis<br /> Chizu Sato, Nanako Nakamura and Jozelin María Soto Alarcón<br /> 11 From land reparations to land justice: Reframing relationships to place using Indigenous Australians’ wisdom<br /> Ed Wensing and Bhiamie Williamson<br /> 12 Land art as commoning and resistance: aesthetics, ecology and community<br /> Emily Brady</p> <p><strong>Part III: De-commoditised collective assets and community infrastructure</strong></p> <p>13 Rural social enterprises as vehicles for postcapitalism<br /> Nikolaos Apostolopoulos and Sotiris Apostolopoulos<br /> 14 Rural enterprise hubs and postcapitalism<br /> Ian Merrell<br /> 15 Platform capitalism and the rural<br /> Mark Scott<br /> 16 Community land trusts in rural locations: a postcapitalist housing transition?<br /> Tom Moore<br /> 17 Unpacking the energy commons<br /> Thomas Bauwens and Robert Wade<br /> 18 Rural heritage as a commons<br /> Mark Scott</p> <p><strong>Part IV: The social transformation</strong></p> <p>19 Re-distributed private landholding as postcapitalism: homeownership and inequality in Britain<br /> Nick Gallent and Phoebe Stirling<br /> 20 The land question and postcapitalist countrysides: towards a town-country synthesis<br /> Yousaf Nishat-Botero and Matt Thompson<br /> 21 Achieving a socialisation of rent through land taxation<br /> Andrew Purves, Nick Gallent, Mark Scott and Menelaos Gkartzios<br /> 22 Towards hopeful postcapitalist futures?<br /> Nick Gallent, Mark Scott, Menelaos Gkartzios and Andrew Purves</p>
December 4, 2025 at 10:27 AM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Bala, M., Singh, S. When elephants fight back: Animal standpoint reading of Nirmal Ghosh’s Novella River Storm (2024) Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, 14 (1), pp. 9-25. Cited 1 time. DOI: 10.1386/fict_00093_1 Abstract Drawing inspiration from […]

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<p>Bala, M., Singh, S.<br /> When elephants fight back: Animal standpoint reading of Nirmal Ghosh’s Novella River Storm (2024) <em>Short Fiction in Theory and Practice</em>, 14 (1), pp. 9-25. Cited 1 time.</p> <p>DOI: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1386/fict_00093_1" target="_blank">10.1386/fict_00093_1</a></p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong><br /> Drawing inspiration from Geoffrey Whitehall’s article titled ‘“When they fight back”: A cinematic archive of animal resistance and world wars’, this article seeks to explore the exploitation and resistance of elephants by examining the power dynamics between humans and elephants in Nirmal Ghosh’s novella <em>River Storm</em> (2022). This study undertakes an animal standpoint reading to recognize the subjective experiences of elephants, questioning the dominance of humans over them. Furthermore, it employs Foucault’s concept of power to challenge the prevailing narrative of absolute control over animals. By highlighting various instances of elephants fighting back, the article aims to subvert the discourse of complete human domination of animals. © 2024 Intellect Ltd Article.</p> <p>Author Keywords<br /> animal abuse; animal agency; animal conflict; animal resistance; animal-centred criticism; confinement; Foucault; human; power; vulnerability</p>
November 24, 2025 at 10:19 AM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Foucault Studies, Issue 38, Fall 2025 Open access Table of Contents Editorial Foucault’s Revision of Ideology Critique Johanna Oksala Waging War, Waging Peace: The Weimar Right and Michel Foucault’s Analysis of Power in the Mirror of the Archives Philipp […]

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<p><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55841"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-25718" height="565" src="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/fs38.jpeg" width="400" /></a><strong><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55841" target="_blank">Foucault Studies</a>, Issue 38, Fall 2025</strong></p> <p>Open access</p> <p><strong><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/55841" target="_blank">Table of Contents</a></strong></p> <p>Editorial</p> <p>Foucault&#8217;s Revision of Ideology Critique<br /> <em>Johanna Oksala</em></p> <p>Waging War, Waging Peace: The Weimar Right and Michel Foucault&#8217;s Analysis of Power in the Mirror of the Archives<br /> <em>Philipp Kender</em></p> <p>Genealogy Between Health and Illness: On the Ambiguity of the Historical Sense in Foucault&#8217;s 1969–1970 Vincennes Lectures on Nietzsche<br /> <em>Federico Testa</em></p> <p>The Hidden Asceticism of Knowledge: Rereading The Gay Science Genealogically with Nietzsche and Foucault<br /> <em>Emmanuel Salanskis</em></p> <p>Truth, Asceticism, and Becoming: Foucault with and against Nietzsche<br /> <em>Daniele Lorenzini</em></p> <p>Nietzsche, Knowledge, and Interest<br /> <em>Frédéric Porcher</em></p> <p>&#8220;The Awful Difficulties of a Theory of the Will&#8221;: Foucault&#8217;s Nietzschean Critique of Ideology<br /> <em>Orazio Irrera</em></p> <p>Foucault at Buffalo in 1970 and 1972: The Desire for Knowledge, The Criminal in Literature, and The History of Truth<br /> <em>Stuart Elden</em></p> <p>&#8220;The History of Truth&#8221;: Foucault in Buffalo, 1972<br /> <em>Leonhard Riep</em></p> <p>Ordoliberalism, State and Society: A Political Theory of Social Order by Olimpia Malatesta (review)<br /> <em>Andrea Di Carlo</em></p> <p>Philosophy, Theory or Way of Life? Controversies in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Juliusz Domański (review)<br /> <em>Antonio Donato</em></p> <p>Foucault&#8217;s Critical Philosophy of History: Unfolding the Present by Adam Takács (review)<br /> <em>Matt Kelley</em></p> <p>The Biopolitics of Punishment: Derrida and Foucault by Rick Elmore and Ege Selin Islekel (review)<br /> <em>Aditya Pratama</em></p> <p>Democratic Biopolitics: Popular Sovereignty and The Power of Life by Sergei Prozorov (review)<br /> <em>Roqiyul Maarif Syam</em></p>
November 15, 2025 at 5:49 AM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Reid-Pharr, R.F. Monster in the Archive (2024) James Baldwin Review, 10 (1), pp. 21-35. DOI: 10.7227/JBR.10.2 Abstract “Monster in the Archive” asks what the presence of a figure with a massive archival presence like James Baldwin does to our […]

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<p><strong>Reid-Pharr, R.F. Monster in the Archive (2024) <em>James Baldwin Review</em>, 10 (1), pp. 21-35.</strong> </p> <p>DOI: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.7227/JBR.10.2" target="_blank">10.7227/JBR.10.2</a></p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong><br /> “Monster in the Archive” asks what the presence of a figure with a massive archival presence like James Baldwin does to our understanding of the presumed “absence” or “lack” of Black subjects in American archives. Paying careful attention to Michel Foucault’s observations about archives in “Lives of Infamous Men” as well as Baldwin’s correspondence with his friend, Mary Painter, this article argues that Baldwin’s “exceptionality” forces scholars and archivists to treat his archival presence as monstrous. Moreover, it argues that we need to develop new methods to approach Black archives. Again, following Foucault, the article proposes that we imagine approaching archives through the lens of friendship suggested by Foucault shortly before his death. © The Authors. Published by Manchester University Press and.</p> <p><strong>Author Keywords</strong><br /> archives; critical fabulation; James Baldwin; Mary Painter; Michel Foucault</p>
November 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Trémon, A.-C. Spatial governmentality and the rhetoric of scarce resources: ‘Scientific and reasonable’ points systems in Shenzhen (China) (2024) Environment and Planning A DOI: 10.1177/0308518X241286335 Abstract Since the early 2010s, all Chinese […]

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<p><strong>Trémon, A.-C.<br /> Spatial governmentality and the rhetoric of scarce resources: ‘Scientific and reasonable’ points systems in Shenzhen (China) (2024) <em>Environment and Planning A</em></strong></p> <p>DOI: <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518X241286335" target="_blank">10.1177/0308518X241286335</a></p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong><br /> Since the early 2010s, all Chinese megacities have adopted points systems that allow ordinary people to apply for urban citizenship (hukou) in the city where they live. Although intended for applicants other than ‘talents’, points systems are highly selective. They are used to adjust urban population growth to economic development and to available resources. Based on research in Shenzhen, and combining Foucault and Gramsci, this article makes three arguments: first, points systems intensify the hukou system’s spatial governmentality, in that they set up a competition for scarce resources that shapes self-governing urban citizens; second, they are justified in ways that seek to produce consent, by giving them uncontestable grounding in science; and third, the gap between their proclaimed benefits and their actual, complex workings gives rise to critique, and even class-based critique. © The Author(s) 2024.</p> <p><strong>Author Keywords</strong><br /> carrying capacity; China; citizenship; critique; Foucault; governmentality; Gramsci; hegemony; points systems; population; public goods; resources; scarcity; urban economy</p>
October 28, 2025 at 4:59 AM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Federico Testa, On the Politics of the Living. Foucault and Canguilhem on Life and Norms, Bloomsbury, 2025 Description Bringing the philosophies of Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem into dialogue, Federico Testa examines the notions of life and norms […]

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<p><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-25224" height="300" src="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/testa.jpg?w=200" width="200" /><strong>Federico Testa, <em><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/on-the-politics-of-the-living-9781350299283/" target="_blank">On the Politics of the Living. Foucault and Canguilhem on Life and Norms</a></em>, Bloomsbury, 2025</strong></p> <p><strong>Description</strong><br /> Bringing the philosophies of Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem into dialogue, Federico Testa examines the notions of life and norms underlying our modern experience of politics.</p> <p>Today&#8217;s global health crisis acts as a stark reminder that life is at the core of our political debates and dilemmas. We can no longer think of forms of political organization, citizenship and participation without considering the materiality and precarity of our own organic life. Ours is a politics of the living.</p> <p>Within this context, this book examines Foucault&#8217;s work on the politicization of life and biopolitics through the lens of Canguilhem&#8217;s notion of norms. Testa extracts from Canguilhem&#8217;s philosophy the conceptual tools to re-interpret Foucault&#8217;s ideas on power, and reconceptualises normativity as a process of the creation of norms that provide tools for political and social analysis and for thinking resistance. In so doing, he uncovers new and important possibilities for biopolitical resistance.</p> <p>Demonstrating not only Canguilhem&#8217;s underexplored social and political concerns but also the intellectual osmosis between the two thinkers, On the Politics of the Living is an urgent examination of the ever-increasing significance of the concepts of life, care and health in today&#8217;s political discourse.</p> <p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p> <p>Part I: Reframing A Philosophical Encounter<br /> Introduction: Foucault, Canguilhem, and the Power of Life<br /> 1. From Foucault to Canguilhem<br /> 2. Canguilhem and Foucault beyond Historical Epistemology</p> <p>Part II: Life and Norms in Georges Canguilhem<br /> 3. Canguilhem, Philosopher<br /> 4. The Normal and the Pathological<br /> 5. Vital Normativity</p> <p>Part III: Foucault and the Power of Norms<br /> 6. Vital and Social Norms<br /> 7. Foucault and the “Archaeology of Normalizing Power”<br /> 8. The Itinerary of the Norm</p> <p>Part IV: Normativity and Critique<br /> 9. Normativity and the Arts of Life<br /> 10. The Political “Awe” of Genealogy: On Critique as an Art of Listening</p>
October 17, 2025 at 5:55 PM
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Philippe Chevallier, Foucault: Genealogies for the Future, Rice University, April 19, (2024) Panel moderated by Cymene Howe, Rice University
<div class="jetpack-video-wrapper"> <div class="embed-youtube"></div> </div> <p>Philippe Chevallier, Foucault: Genealogies for the Future, Rice University, April 19, (2024)<br /> Panel moderated by Cymene Howe, Rice University</p>
October 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Andreas Elpidorou, Josefa Ros Velasco, Eds. The History and Philosophy of Boredom, Routledge, 2025 Description From Lucretius’s horror loci and Buddhist drowsiness to the religious boredom of acedia and the philosophical explorations of Kant, Schopenhauer […]

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<p><a href="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/boredom.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-22854" height="256" src="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/boredom.jpg" width="180" /></a><strong>Andreas Elpidorou, Josefa Ros Velasco, Eds. <em><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-History-and-Philosophy-of-Boredom/Elpidorou-RosVelasco/p/book/9781032328256?srsltid=AfmBOopOx1oPjzru1qyrplEIMA3qmFBKmm2R_oDLTAw-IVnCLbvq8Sxh" target="_blank">The History and Philosophy of Boredom</a></em>, Routledge, 2025</strong></p> <p><strong>Description</strong><br /> From Lucretius’s <em>horror loci</em> and Buddhist drowsiness to the religious boredom of acedia and the philosophical explorations of Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, boredom has long been a subject of philosophical fascination. Its story, unfolding through millennia, encompasses apathy, weariness, disaffection, melancholy, ennui, tedium, and monotony. Today, boredom assumes new forms: the drudgery of precarious work, the alienation of neoliberalism, the emptiness of leisure, and the overstimulation of our hyperconnected, technologically saturated lives.</p> <p><em>The History and Philosophy of Boredom</em> is an outstanding collection, exploring boredom’s intellectual history from its early origins in classical thought to its contemporary manifestations. Containing eighteen specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors, the volume is organized into four thematic parts:</p> <p>-Ancient Philosophical Perspectives<br /> -Religious and Medieval Explorations<br /> -Modern Philosophical Investigations<br /> -Critical and Interdisciplinary Approaches</p> <p>Topics include boredom in Socratic dialogue, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, Stoicism, and Cynicism; the religious significance of boredom in Judaism and early Christianity; boredom’s role in the works of Kant, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Mill, and Nietzsche; philosophical pessimism; phenomenological approaches; boredom as a political phenomenon; and boredom’s intersections with capitalism, socialism, racial identity, and transhumanism.</p> <p><em>The History and Philosophy of Boredom</em> is indispensable for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, emotion studies, phenomenology, and moral psychology. It will also interest scholars in religion, classics, sociology, and the history of psychology.</p>
June 30, 2025 at 12:09 AM
michel-foucault.com.web.brid.gy
Mark Pennington, Foucault and Liberal Political Economy. Power, Knowledge, and Freedom, Oxford University Press, 2025 Link to digital edition Description This highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the […]

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<p><a href="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/pennington.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-22811" height="550" src="https://michel-foucault.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/pennington.jpg" width="364" /></a><strong>Mark Pennington, <em><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/foucault-and-liberal-political-economy-9780197690529?cc=au&amp;lang=en&amp;" target="_blank">Foucault and Liberal Political Economy. Power, Knowledge, and Freedom</a></em>, Oxford University Press, 2025</strong></p> <p><em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197690550.001.0001" target="_blank">Link to digital edition</a></em></p> <p><strong>Description</strong><br /> This highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the French social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault from within the tradition of liberal political economy. Divided into two parts the book commences by demonstrating important commonalities between Foucault&#8217;s ideas and those of a neglected &#8216;post-modern&#8217; stream in liberal political and economic thought. These ideas draw on a social theory emphasising a culturally situated individualism; a philosophy of science highly critical of socio-economic &#8216;scientism&#8217; and &#8216;expert rule&#8217;; and an understanding of freedom as an open-ended process of &#8216;self-creation&#8217; in the face of cultural power relations—a freedom threatened by alignments between state power and more decentred manifestations of power.</p> <p>Part two combines the tools of Foucault&#8217;s critical social theory with those of a post-modern liberalism to problematise four separate though overlapping &#8216;bio-political&#8217; or &#8216;pastoral&#8217; <em>dispositifs</em> in contemporary liberal societies focused on social justice, public health, ecological sustainability, and law and order. Where the Foucauldian and the post-modern liberal approaches suggest that freedom requires a cultural and economic &#8216;creative destruction&#8217; that destabilises existing modes of thought and ways of being, the pastoral dispositifs that seek to &#8216;monitor and correct&#8217; multiple pattern anomalies are shown to stifle the space for that creative freedom.</p> <p>Though the book does not engage the question of whether Foucault himself moved towards endorsing liberal political economy, it throws considerable light on how key Foucauldian concerns may be addressed within the liberal tradition, and why Foucauldians may have reason to embrace a reconstituted or post-modern liberalism.</p>
May 14, 2025 at 11:57 PM