Stuart,
[I'll reply here although I know you've posted this on other lists as well.]
I'd say that these questions are as much about Foucault's thinking at that
time as they are genuine questions for geography and related disciplines. As
such they would make a good initial start for a reassessment of the
"critical encounter" between Foucault and geography. This could occur either
as an appraisal of how Foucault has been deployed in the face of
geographical questions, or the questions could be taken as beginning points
for new analyses.
It depends how much energy and interest there is "out there" as to the size
of this project, but initially I could see this being a special issue of a
journal, eg Environment and Planning D. I for one would be very interested.
--Jeremy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart Elden" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 8:38 AM
Subject: Foucault and Geography
> Apologies to those not interested in Foucault - no need to carry on
reading.
>
> As is fairly well known, in 1976 Foucault was interviewed by the French
> Marxist geography journal Herodote (No 1, pp. 71-85). The interview is
> reprinted in Dits et ecrits, Vol III, pp. 28-40, and translated in
> Power/Knowledge, pp. 63-77.
>
> In the third issue of this journal, Foucault asked some questions back. As
> far as i know these questions have never been published in English (they
are
> in Dits et ecrits, Vol III, pp. 94-5). Foucault's questions back to the
> journal touch upon many of the issues discussed in the interview, but
raise
> some important issues of their own - namely the relation of strategy and
war
> to understandings of power and knowledge and geography's understanding of
> strategy; the role of science in relation to geography - a science of
> space?; geography's understanding of power and its broadening away from a
> notion of production; and the possibility of a geography of medicine.
>
> The questions are only about 400 words, but they seem to me to be quite
> interesting in terms of the relation between Foucault and geography. I
have
> made a translation of this piece, but have not attempted to secure
> translation rights as yet. I was wondering what to do with this - either
to
> write a commentary and submit it to a journal; to try to get a journal
> special issue where different people responded to the questions; or to use
> it as the basis for an edited collection which assessed Foucault's
relation
> to geography and vice versa.
>
> Any suggestions would be very useful. I'd rather not circulate the draft
> translation at this point.
>
> Stuart
>
> Dr Stuart Elden
> Lecturer in Political Geography
> Department of Geography
> University of Durham
> Durham, DH1 3LE
> www.geography.dur.ac.uk/information/staff/elden.html
>
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