福柯与主观性政治学系列讲座
主题：福柯与主观性政治学之一——课程简介，主要概念介绍：福柯、权力、主观性
主讲人：Dr. Brent Pickett
美国怀俄明大学政治科学教授
主持人：金桥博士
讲座语言：英文
时间：5月23日9：00
地点：上海大学新校区B417
Foucault and the Politics of the Subject
Dr. Brent Pickett
Professor of Political Science
In a series of works he published in the 1970s, the influential French philosopher Michel Foucault articulated a new method of analyzing power relations in the modern era, and applied that method to various social domains, most notably the prison and sexuality. This course will examine Foucault’s description of modern power relations, the interrelationship between power and resistance, and Foucault’s sometimes cryptic suggestions for more just social relations. The core texts for the course will be Discipline and Punish, Volume One of The History of Sexuality, and several essays he wrote contemporaneously with those books.
Two themes will help organize the course material. One is interpretive: was Foucault primarily a philosopher who examined various problems without proposing a superior alternative, or was he politically engaged and critical of certain practices in the name of alternatives he prefers? The latter answer (for which there is significant textual and biographical support) leads to the second theme: since his overall philosophical position appears to prevent him from offering any sort of metaphysical defense for the superiority of one set of social practices over any other, on what basis could Foucault defend them? Or is his position caught in contradictions it cannot overcome?
