The Government of Life: Foucault, Biopolitics, and Neoliberalism

by Vanessa Lemm (Editor), Miguel Vatter (Editor)

Overview

Foucault's late work on biopolitics and governmentality has established him as the fundamental thinker of contemporary continental political thought and as a privileged source for our current understanding of neoliberalism and its technologies of power. In this volume, an international and interdisciplinary group of Foucault scholars examines his ideas of biopower and biopolitics and their relation to his project of a history of governmentality and to a theory of the subject found in his last courses at the College de France.

Many of the chapters engage critically with the Italian theoretical reception of Foucault. At the same time, the originality of this collection consists in the variety of perspectives and traditions of reception brought to bear upon the problematic connections between biopolitics and governmentality established by Foucault's last works.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823255979
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	04/05/2014
Series:	Forms of Living
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Vanessa Lemm is Professor in Philosophy at the School of Humanities and Languages of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Nietzsche's Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics and the Animality of the Human Being (Fordham).

Miguel Vatter is Professor of Politics at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of Between Form and Event: Machiavelli's Theory of Political Freedom (Kluwer) with a paperback edition forthcoming with Fordham 2014.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations

Introduction
Vanessa Lemm and Miguel Vatter

Part I. The Nomos of Neoliberalism
1. The Fourth Age of Security
Frédéric Gros
2. The Law of the Household: Foucault, Neoliberalism and the Iranian Revolution
Melinda Cooper
3. The Risks of Security: Liberalism, Biopolitics and Fear
Thomas Lemke

Part II. Genealogies of Biopolitics
4. A Genealogy of Biopolitics: The Notion of Life in Canguilhem and Foucault
Maria Muhle
5. Power over Life, Politics of Death: Forms of Resistance to Biopower in Foucault
Francesco Paolo Adorno
6. Identity, Nature, Life: Three Biopolitical Deconstructions
Judith Revel

Part III. Liberalism between Legality and Governmentality
7. From Reason of State to Liberalism: The Coup d'État as Form of Government
Roberto Nigro
8. Foucault and Rawls: Government and Public Reason
Paul Patton
9. Foucault and Hayek: Republican Law and Liberal Civil Society
Miguel Vatter

Part IV. Philosophy as Ethics and as Embodiment
10. Parrhesia Between East and West: Foucault and Dissidence
Simona Forti
11. The Embodiment of Truth and the Politics of Community: Foucault and the Cynics
Vanessa Lemm

Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

We are facing an explosion of research on biopolitical questions today, and this volume certainly represents a welcome addition to this growing literature.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Nicolae Morar

Over the last twenty years, few concepts have been more investigated and used than the one of "biopolitics". However, only rarely has it been attempted to compare these uses in their variety and in their contradiction. This volume has the merit of offering a subtle and rich, complete and articulate view on what "biopolitics" means today, and in this way contributes to establish a political grammar for the start of this century.

Antonio Negri

The Government of Life reminds us of how prescient Foucault was. We have so few guides in our present age of unbridled neoliberalism and biopolitics; Foucault was one of the few who saw what was coming. The authors in this volume richly plumb Foucault's work in order to make sense of our predicament, to recuperate from the maw of biopolitics a more affirmative way of life. These authors speak to one another and to Foucault through a focus on common texts. In doing so they engage in critical questions about sovereignty, bodies and human life that make for essential reading for anyone interested in the underlying fabric of our time and our politics.

San Francisco State University - James Martel

An extraordinarily incisive and comprehensive collection of essays by an internationally distinguished list of contributors, Foucault, Biopolitics and Neoliberalism brilliantly discloses how Foucault’s thinking continues to challenge and provoke 30 years after his death. No memorializing of Foucault, these essays think with and against his work in a spirit of critical engagement which could provide no better tribute to him.

Professor Emeritus, Lancaster University - Michael Dillon

The Government of Life does not simply analyze Foucault’s ideas about governmentality. It reconsiders Foucault’s thought from the standpoint of recent developments in continental and especially Italian philosophy with philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and Toni Negri.

Appalachian State University - Michael Behrent

"Over the last twenty years, few concepts have been more investigated and used than the one of "biopolitics". However, only rarely has it been attempted to compare these uses in their variety and in their contradiction. This volume has the merit of offering a subtle and rich, complete and articulate view on what "biopolitics" means today, and in this way contributes to establish a political grammar for the start of this century."-Antonio Negri

"iThe Government of Lifer reminds us of how prescient Foucault was. We have so few guides in our present age of unbridled neoliberalism and biopolitics; Foucault was one of the few who saw what was coming. The authors in this volume richly plumb Foucault's work in order to make sense of our predicament, to recuperate from the maw of biopolitics a more affirmative way of life. These authors speak to one another and to Foucault through a focus on common texts. In doing so they engage in critical questions about sovereignty, bodies and human life that make for essential reading for anyone interested in the underlying fabric of our time and our politics."—James Martel, San Francisco State University

"We are facing an explosion of research on biopolitical questions today, and this volume certainly represents a welcome addition to this growing literature."-Nicolae Morar, iNotre Dame Philosophical Reviewsr

"...a highly readable and inspiring collection of essays."-iContemporary Political Theoryr

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