In his works on ethics, Foucault turned towards an examination of one's relationship with oneself and others. This differs from the modern approaches that explore the relationship between and the responsibilities of actors to each other by adopting criteria. Ethical criteria engender assumptions about the actors by focusing on their responsibilities. Instead of relying on criteria, Foucault's writing and lectures contributed to an awareness of the activities we take upon ourselves as ethical subjects. His reconstruction of the Greco-Roman ethics seeks to examine the possibilities of the reconstitution and transformation of subjectivity. Through this, he offers an avenue of understanding the formation of ethical subjects in their educational interrelationships.
This book considers Foucault as educator in three main ways. First, through some consideration of what his work says about education as a social and political practice. That is, education as a form of what Allen (2014) calls benign violence – which operates through mundane, quotidian disciplinary technologies and expert knowledges which together construct a ‘pedagogical machine’. Second, through an exploration of his ‘method’ as a form of critique. That is, as a way of showing that things are ‘not as necessary as all that’, a way of addressing what is intolerable. This suggests that critique is education of a kind. Third, through a discussion of some of Foucault's later work on subjectivity and in particular on ‘the care of the self’ or what we might call ‘a pedagogy of the self’. Each chapter introduces and discusses some relevant examples from educational settings to illustrate and enact Foucault’s analytics.
Aesthetics offers a focused study on the philosophy, literature and art which informed Foucault's engagement with ethics and power, including brilliant commentaries on the work of de Sade, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Wagner.
Foucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy. By focusing on some of the ways Foucault has been placed in relation to educational questions or questions about education, Ball highlights the relationships between Foucault's concepts and methods, and educational research and analysis. An introductory chapter offers a brief explanation of some of Foucault's key concerns, while additional chapters explore ways in which Ball himself has sought to apply Foucault's ideas in addressing contemporary educational issues. In this intensely personal and reflective text, Ball offers an interpretation of his Foucault--That is, his own particular reading of the Foucauldian toolbox. Ideal for courses in education policy and education studies, this valuable teaching resource is essential reading for any education scholar looking for a starting point into the literature and ideas of Foucault.
A growing sense of urgency over obesity at the national and international level has led to a proliferation of medical and non-medical interventions into the daily lives of individuals and populations. This work focuses on the biopolitical use of lifestyle to govern individual choice and secure population health from the threat of obesity. The characterization of obesity as a threat to society caused by the cumulative effect of individual lifestyles has led to the politicization of daily choices, habits and practices as potential threats. This book critically examines these unquestioned assumptions about obesity and lifestyle, and their relation to wider debates surrounding neoliberal governmentality, biopolitical regulation of populations, discipline of bodies, and the possibility of community resistance. The rationale for this book follows Michel Foucault’s approach of problematization, addressing the way lifestyle is problematized as a biopolitical domain in neoliberal societies. Mayes argues that in response to the threat of obesity, lifestyle has emerged as a network of disparate knowledges, relations and practices through which individuals are governed toward the security of the population’s health. Although a central focus is government health campaigns, this volume demonstrates that the network of lifestyle emanates from a variety of overlapping domains and disciplines, including public health, clinical medicine, media, entertainment, school programs, advertising, sociology and ethics. This book offers a timely critique of the continued interventions into the lives of individuals and communities by government agencies, private industries, medical and non-medical experts in the name of health and population security and will be of interests to students and scholars of critical international relations theory, health and bioethics and governmentality studies.
This book focuses on Foucault's later work and his (re)turn to 'the hermeneutics of the subject', exploring the implications of his thinking for education, pedagogy, and related disciplines. What and who is the subject of education and what are the forms of self-constitution? Chapters investigate Foucault's notion of 'the culture of self' in relation to questions concerning truth (parrhesia or free speech) and subjectivity, especially with reference to the literary genres of confession and biography, and the contemporary political forms of individualization (governmentality).
'A fabulous journey through thirty years of political and intellectual ferment ... will reorient our reading of Foucault's major works' Didier Eribon The Essential Works of Michel Foucault offers the definitive collection of his articles, interviews and seminars from across thirty years of his extraordinary career. This first volume, Ethics, contains the summaries of Foucault's renowned courses at the Collège de France, as well as key writings and candid interviews on ethical matters: from the role of the intellectual and philosopher in society to friendship, sexuality and the care of the self and others. Edited by Paul Rabinow Translated by Robert Hurley and Others
In his works on ethics, Foucault turned towards an examination of one's relationship with oneself and others. This differs from the modern approaches that explore the relationship between and the responsibilities of actors to each other by adopting criteria. Ethical criteria engender assumptions about the actors by focusing on their responsibilities. Instead of relying on criteria, Foucault's writing and lectures contributed to an awareness of the activities we take upon ourselves as ethical subjects. His reconstruction of the Greco-Roman ethics seeks to examine the possibilities of the reconstitution and transformation of subjectivity. Through this, he offers an avenue of understanding the formation of ethical subjects in their educational interrelationships.
School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of Michel Foucault to provoke new thought into how the principalship is lived and ‘disciplined’ in ways that produce both contradictions and tensions for school principals. Amidst claims of a shortage of applicants for principal positions in a number of Western countries, what is required are more sophisticated and nuanced tools with which to understand the pressures and constraints that face principals in their work on a daily basis. This book provides a powerful example of theory working through practice to move beyond traditional approaches to school leadership. Key features of the book: provides a well theorised analysis of leadership practices acknowledges the messy reality of life for school principals provides key insights to the ‘real’ work that principals undertake every day examines the production of principals’ subjectivities in education, foregrounding issues of gender and race includes the principals’ voices through rich interview data. The book will be of significant interest to principals and those working and researching in educational leadership, including researchers in the field and academics who teach into educational leadership and administration courses. The book will also be of great interest to those working with the ideas of Foucault in education.
