Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
1974 is a crtical moment in Foucault's evoving intellectual trajectory. At that point, particulary when the first volume of History of Sexuality makes its appearance, Foucault swerves sharply, so to speak, from the idea of sovereign and disciplinary power, and refocus his genealogical research on the now well-known topics of biopower and biopolitics. Contra some misunderstandng, Foucault's first foray into this new ground is less an abrupt discontinuity in his intellectual development, than a conseqential addition to the genealogical mapping of contemporary power operation. This seminar is designed to familiarize students with why and how Foucault begins and continues his extensive exploration of this new subject since 1974, and assess its critical import for the contemporary theoretical and literary study.
This course will be divided into two parts. Before mid-term, we will focus exclusively on Foucault's Security, Territory, and Population, the ground-breaking lectures he delivered at College de France from 1977 to 1978. In this tour de force, Foucault elaborates with great panache on how the disciplinary power intensifies itself in the 19th century, evolving into sophisticated technologiies instrumental in governing the life and death of population. In the second part of this course, Giorgio Aagmben's provocative reflection on Covid-19 pandemic and J. M. Coetzee's Slow Man will be throwing in for good measure, with a view to assessing if the idea of "destituent potntial" can be a viable counterbalance to the tight grip of governmentality on the living and nonliving things on the planet.
能力項目說明
1974 is a crtical moment in Foucault's evoving intellectual trajectory. At that point, particulary when the first volume of History of Sexuality makes its appearance, Foucault swerves sharply, so to speak, from the idea of sovereign and disciplinary power, and refocus his genealogical research on the now well-known topics of biopower and biopolitics. Contra some misunderstandng, Foucault's first foray into this new ground is less an abrupt discontinuity in his intellectual development, than a conseqential addition to the genealogical mapping of contemporary power operation. This seminar is designed to familiarize students with why and how Foucault begins and continues his extensive exploration of this new subject since 1974, and assess its critical import for the contemporary theoretical and literary study.
This course will be divided into two parts. Before mid-term, we will focus exclusively on Foucault's Security, Territory, and Population, the ground-breaking lectures he delivered at College de France from 1977 to 1978. In this tour de force, Foucault elaborates with great panache on how the disciplinary power intensifies itself in the 19th century, evolving into sophisticated technologiies instrumental in governing the life and death of population. In the second part of this course, Giorgio Aagmben's provocative reflection on Covid-19 pandemic and J. M. Coetzee's Slow Man will be throwing in for good measure, with a view to assessing if the idea of "destituent potntial" can be a viable counterbalance to the tight grip of governmentality on the living and nonliving things.
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
|---|---|---|
9/10 General introduction: What happened to Foucault in 1970s?
I. From disciplinary power to governmentality
9/17-10/29 Security, Territory, and Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-1978
II. Can "destituent potential" be a counterweight to governmentality?
11/05-11/19 Giorgio Agamben, Where Aren We Now?: The Epidemic as Politics
11/26-12/10 Giorgio Agamben, "Toward a Theory of Destituent Potential," in The Use of Bodies
12/17-12/24 J. M. Coetzee, Slow Man
Attendance 10%
Discussion and participation 40%
Term paper 50%
Campbell, Timothy and Adam Sitze, eds. Biopolitics: A Reader. Durham: Duke UP, 2013.
Clough, Patricia Ticineto and Craig Willse, eds. Beyond Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life and Death. Durham: Duke UP, 2011.
Dean Mitchell and Daniel Zamora. The Last Man Takes LSD: Foucault and the End of Revolution. London: Verso, 2021.
Elden, Stuart. Foucault's Last Decade. Cambridge: Polity P, 2016.
Prozorov, Sergei. Agamben and Politics: A Critical Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2014.