Foucault and Political Capital.

In a choice between analyzing politics with Foucault or Bourdieu (the best exponent of politically and socially mediated forms of capital), I mostly opt for Foucault.
I tend to think of political capital as performatively constituted, not essentially given. The numbers indicate a baseline from every day prior to today’s news cycle. But political capital is [...]

Foucaultian inquiries.

One of the things that has been happening for me (I know others experience it) once I’ve grasped what a certain masked philosopher’s whole project was about is that everything in everyday life looks different – new questions and ideas come to the fore in everything. Foucault suggests that a historical-critical “ontology of ourselves” must [...]

Foucault conference presentation.

I’ve been accepted to present at the 5th Annual Social Theory Forum at UMass Boston! The theme is “A Foucault for the 21st Century: Governmentality, Biopolitics, and Discipline in the New Millennium.”
Foucault is best remembered for his historical inquiries into the origins of
“disciplinary” society in a period extending from the 16th to the 19th
centuries. Today, [...]

Mind-altering quotes.

From a masked philosopher:
“In whatever is given to us as universal, necessary, obligatory, what place is occupied by whatever is singular, contingent, and the product of arbitrary constraints? The point, in brief, is to transform the critique conducted in the form of necessary limitation into a practical critique that takes the form of a possible [...]