Mark G. E. Kelly - Böcker

This book surveys Michel Foucault’s thought in the context of his life and times, utilising the latest primary and secondary materials to explain the political implications of each phase of his work and the relationships between each phase. It also illustrates how his thought has been used in the political sphere and examines the importance of his work for politics today.

Read through the lens of a single key concept in twentieth-century French philosophy, that of the "problem", this book relates the concept to specific thinkers and situates it in relation both to the wider history of philosophy and contemporary concerns.How exactly should the notion of problems be understood? What must a problem be in order to play an inaugurating role in thought? Does the word "problem" have a univocal sense? What is at stake – theoretically, ethically, politically, and institutionally – when philosophers use the word? This book addresses these and other questions, and is devoted to making historical and philosophical sense of the various uses and conceptualisations of notions of problems, problematics, and problematisations in twentieth-century French thought. In the process, it augments our understanding of the philosophical programs of a number of recent French thinkers, reconfigures our perception of the history and wider stakes of twentieth-century French philosophy, and reveals the ongoing theoretical richness and critical potential of the notion of the problem and its cognates. Working through the twentieth-century, and focussing on specific thinkers including Foucault and Deleuze, this book will be of interest to all scholars of French philosophy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.

Read through the lens of a single key concept in twentieth-century French philosophy, that of the "problem", this book relates the concept to specific thinkers and situates it in relation both to the wider history of philosophy and contemporary concerns.How exactly should the notion of problems be understood? What must a problem be in order to play an inaugurating role in thought? Does the word "problem" have a univocal sense? What is at stake – theoretically, ethically, politically, and institutionally – when philosophers use the word? This book addresses these and other questions, and is devoted to making historical and philosophical sense of the various uses and conceptualisations of notions of problems, problematics, and problematisations in twentieth-century French thought. In the process, it augments our understanding of the philosophical programs of a number of recent French thinkers, reconfigures our perception of the history and wider stakes of twentieth-century French philosophy, and reveals the ongoing theoretical richness and critical potential of the notion of the problem and its cognates. Working through the twentieth-century, and focussing on specific thinkers including Foucault and Deleuze, this book will be of interest to all scholars of French philosophy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.

In the first volume of his History of Sexuality, 'The Will to Knowledge', Foucault weaves together the most influential theoretical account of sexuality since Freud. Now, this is the first reading guide to Foucault's dense and sometimes confusing text. Mark Kelly systematically unpacks the intricacies of Foucault's dense and sometimes confusing exposition, in a straightforward way, putting it in its historical and theoretical context. He looks at the book, its structure and philosophical significance, and corrects several key mistranslations in the only available English version of the 'Will to Knowledge'.

Calls for a Foucauldian approach to political thought that is intrinsically resistant to power and subordination to public policy.This book comprises a series of staged confrontations between the thought of Michel Foucault and a cast of other figures in European and Anglophone political philosophy, including Marx, Lenin, Althusser, Deleuze, Rorty, Honneth, and Geuss. Focusing on the status of normativity in their thought, Mark G. E. Kelly explains how Foucault's position in relation to political theory is different, and, over the course of the book, describes a distinctive Foucauldian stance in political thought that is maximally anti-normative, anti-theoretical, and anti-political. For Foucault aims to undermine attempts to discern the appropriate form of political action, instead putting forward a rigorously critical program for a political theory that lacks any moralizing or totalizing dimension, and serves only to side with resistance against power, and never with power itself. Looking at attempts to think radically about politics from Marx to the present day, Kelly traces a novel history of political thought as a trend of attempts to overcome the constraints of normativity, theoreticism, and subordination to public policy. He concludes by assessing and rejecting recent attempts to reclaim Foucault for a form of normative politics by associating him with neoliberalism.

Calls for a Foucauldian approach to political thought that is intrinsically resistant to power and subordination to public policy.This book comprises a series of staged confrontations between the thought of Michel Foucault and a cast of other figures in European and Anglophone political philosophy, including Marx, Lenin, Althusser, Deleuze, Rorty, Honneth, and Geuss. Focusing on the status of normativity in their thought, Mark G. E. Kelly explains how Foucault's position in relation to political theory is different, and, over the course of the book, describes a distinctive Foucauldian stance in political thought that is maximally anti-normative, anti-theoretical, and anti-political. For Foucault aims to undermine attempts to discern the appropriate form of political action, instead putting forward a rigorously critical program for a political theory that lacks any moralizing or totalizing dimension, and serves only to side with resistance against power, and never with power itself. Looking at attempts to think radically about politics from Marx to the present day, Kelly traces a novel history of political thought as a trend of attempts to overcome the constraints of normativity, theoreticism, and subordination to public policy. He concludes by assessing and rejecting recent attempts to reclaim Foucault for a form of normative politics by associating him with neoliberalism.

This is a book about what we consider normal. It details how the very concept of normality emerged in the modern era, and how it has changed over the centuries.By the mid-twentieth century, the expansion of norms across various areas of human endeavour generated a governing normative order in Western societies. Normality was defined as conformity with a narrow model of conventional human behaviour. However, this model has since been displaced by an anti-conformism, in which normality is defined as absolute self-fulfilment, defying older restrictions on our behaviour. Paradoxically, narcissistic individualism and rebellion against conformity have become compulsory.Normal Now explores in detail how this new normative order plays out today in the arenas of politics, health, and sex and sexuality. In all these areas, the uncompromising perfectionism of our norms of self-expression leads to increasingly deep-seated and ubiquitous anger, anxiety and dissatisfaction.