TY - JOUR
T1 - Foucault's "German moment"
T2 - Genealogy of a Disjuncture
AU - Hannah, Matthew G.
N1 - This paper is essentially a study in the geography of knowledge. It argues, first, that, at a critical juncture in the development of Foucault's ideas about what he called 'neoliberal governmentality', his involvement in a West German political controversy on the fringes of the struggle between the FRG government and the Red Army Fraction (or 'Baader-Meinhof Gang') significantly influenced his conception of neoliberal power. Secondly, I present evidence highlighting Foucault's subsequent failure to develop the line of thinking spurred by German events, and suggest that this failure can be traced to a dispute with other French intellectuals over whether the FRG government could be termed 'fascist'. The paper will likely draw a good deal of attention, both because it is the first study to focus so strongly on the impact of contemporary German politics upon Foucault's thought, and because it highlights a hitherto unremarked but clearly demonstrable disjuncture in that thought. The journal Foucault Studies is read by a wide range of scholars across the social sciences and humanities.
PY - 2012/5
Y1 - 2012/5
N2 - Foucault’s lectures from early 1979 on the German Ordo-liberalen are typically taken to comprise his most comprehensive account of why Germany is important for understanding neo-liberal governmentality more broadly. This paper argues, to the contrary, that the 1979 lectures actually obscure a potentially more complete account of German, neo-liberal governmentality Foucault had begun to sketch in 1977. To support this reading and to offer an explanation of why Foucault would have decided to alter his presentation of West German neo-liberalism, the paper undertakes a genealogy of Foucault’s involvement with West German political issues in 1977 and 1978. The core claims that structure the argument are as follows: (1) Key aspects of the “security state” that Foucault began to work out in 1977, must have been at least partly modeled on West German “militant” or “battle-ready” democracy; (2) Yet, in his 1979 lectures, there is no longer any trace of these repressive, extralegal dimensions; (3) This shift was motivated to a significant extent by his 1977 disagreement with Deleuze, Guattari, and others over whether the West German state of the late 1970s could be considered “fascist.” This concern to contest the accusation of fascism is carried forward in his 1979 lectures in a critique of “state phobia.”
AB - Foucault’s lectures from early 1979 on the German Ordo-liberalen are typically taken to comprise his most comprehensive account of why Germany is important for understanding neo-liberal governmentality more broadly. This paper argues, to the contrary, that the 1979 lectures actually obscure a potentially more complete account of German, neo-liberal governmentality Foucault had begun to sketch in 1977. To support this reading and to offer an explanation of why Foucault would have decided to alter his presentation of West German neo-liberalism, the paper undertakes a genealogy of Foucault’s involvement with West German political issues in 1977 and 1978. The core claims that structure the argument are as follows: (1) Key aspects of the “security state” that Foucault began to work out in 1977, must have been at least partly modeled on West German “militant” or “battle-ready” democracy; (2) Yet, in his 1979 lectures, there is no longer any trace of these repressive, extralegal dimensions; (3) This shift was motivated to a significant extent by his 1977 disagreement with Deleuze, Guattari, and others over whether the West German state of the late 1970s could be considered “fascist.” This concern to contest the accusation of fascism is carried forward in his 1979 lectures in a critique of “state phobia.”
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/2160/8521
M3 - Article
SN - 1832-5203
SP - 116
EP - 137
JO - Foucault Studies
JF - Foucault Studies
IS - 13
ER -