Hi,
I've enjoyed reading the discussion of Foucault sparked by Stuart Elden's note
on his translation of Foucault's questions for geography, and I, like Jeremy,
hope something comes of it. I want to put in my two cents on the larger topic
of how we read and make use of Foucault's ideas.
I agree very much with Felix Driver that we need to be careful, but, I would
add, only in certain ways. Most of us following this particular discussion
would agree that Foucault was an unusually thought-provoking scholar, and
precisely for that reason it may be harder in his case to keep straight how
much of the thought he provokes in us is actually attributable to him. We do
need to, though.
On the other hand, if we take Foucault's own style of engagement with other
important thinkers as an example, "care" in the narrow exegetical sense was not
always the first priority. I happen to be in the middle of re-reading
Foucault's works, and the thing that leaps out at me once again is the sheer
joy he takes in thinking in new, different, unorthodox directions. Although he
wasn't sloppy, he also approached the thought of his and previous times with
too much creative energy to deny himself the pleasures and potential insights
of "risky" readings. His handling of any number of thinkers from Descartes to
Husserl to Ricardo has made some specialists in these fields cringe for
decades, but not without delighting others who find new insights where their
colleagues saw nothing of value.
As Stuart (or was it Felix?) pointed out, Foucault wasn't afraid to carry out
his thought processes in public, and to admit mistakes when he thought he'd
made them. In my reading, anyway, for all his astounding erudition, he was far
more deeply committed to the "interesting" than to the "definitive." If we are
to proceed in his spirit (apologies to Derrideans), I think we need to avoid
spending too much energy defending the sanctity of his thought (which, given
his lifelong devotion to the problem of the construction and self-construction
of subjectivities, including authorial subjectivities, would be the height of
irony). He'd probably be happiest to see us bending it, stretching it, re-
contextualizing it, mixing it with apparently incompatible work to see what
happens, struggling to make something new out of it, even at the risk of
occasional blunders.
So I, too, welcome the work on "neo-liberal" and "colonial" governmentalities,
and precisely because it is not already to be found in what Foucault wrote.
Let's try to keep his thought spinning, vibrating and throwing off interesting
debris whenever it careens into nearby discourses...
I look forward to further installments.
Matt Hannah
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