Foucauldian Reading Research Articles

Luther and Biopower: Rethinking the Reformation with Foucault

In this article, we propose an alternative Foucauldian reading of Martin Luther’s thought and early Lutheranism. Michel Foucault did not mention the Reformation often, although he saw it as an amplification of pastoral power and the governing of people’s everyday lives. We aim to fill the gap in his analysis by outlining the disciplinary and biopolitical aspects in Luther and early Lutheranism. Therefore, we also contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the birth of biopolitics, which, we argue, predates Foucault’s periodisation. Our approach to tackling these questions is three-pronged. First, we establish the context by highlighting a few Reformation-era examples of the conceptual opposite of biopower, namely, sovereign power. Second, we scrutinise the disciplinary aspects of early Lutheranism, underscoring the fact that disciplinary institutions appear to subject people to new models of behaviour. Third, we describe the biopolitical undercurrents in Luther’s thought and its early reception. We argue that the reformer’s views on issues such as marriage and poor relief appear to carry a biopolitical significance before the alleged birth of biopolitics.

Unbecoming of a unified religion: A Foucauldian reading of Girish Karnad’s Tale-danda and the Lingayat plight

Based on the theme of caste conflict in Girish Karnad’s play Tale-danda, this article aims to delineate how a sub-sect of a majoritarian (Hindu) community endeavoured to establish itself as a distinct religious group (Lingayatism), failed miserably in its mission, and how it is forced to ultimately merge itself into the larger community. The article will explore the reasons for its failure from the events of Karnad’s play Tale-danda, written against the backdrop of the actual events of the Lingayat Movement led by the poet–saint Basavanna in the twelfth-century CE Karnataka. In the play, Karnad depicts many instances of caste consciousness and caste conflicts among the characters. The main objective of the study will be to analyse these sites of conflict as depicted by Karnad in his play Tale-danda, in light of the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge and discourse. This article will also highlight how sometimes intra-caste conflicts are more prominent than inter-caste conflicts.

Woman Interrupted: A Foucauldian Reading of Gender, Madness, and Power in the Movies Girl, Interrupted and Unsane

This article presents a Foucauldian reading of the movies Girl, Interrupted (1999) and Unsane (2018) which deal with women in psychiatric institutions. Building on Foucault’s conceptualization of asylums, the medical gaze, and confinement as a paradigm of power, the researchers study the female protagonists in the two movies as characters struggling with psychological issues stemming from their rejection of gender normativity. The experiences of Susanna and Sawyer in asylums are a reflection of a larger struggle against social expectations and sexual norms.

On "Westsplaining," realism, and technologies of the Self: A Foucauldian reading of the realist commentary on Ukraine

The article offers a Foucauldian reading of the Western realist commentary on the Russo-Ukrainian war which often faces the charges of "Westsplaining. " It situates this commentary in the broader context of knowledge production and the power-knowledge nexūs it reproduces and conceptualizes realism as a discourse in the Foucauldian sense. As the article argues, this conceptualization allows one to capture its specific technologies of power which, in this case, can be understood as a form of technology of the Self, or, in other words, the disciplining of the collective subjects of world politics (nation-states) through the specifically realist constructs of rationality and prudence that all states are expected to adhere to in the making of their foreign policy. Additionally, the article suggests that this conceptualization of realism as a discourse can be analytically helpful in making sense of the way in which very different genres such as academic research and the op-ed policy commentary, frequently provided by realist IR scholars, are connected through the political economy of knowledge production, thus forming a relationship of discursive symbiosis and mutual legitimation.

A Foucauldian reading of ‘Technologies of the Self’ in Anatole France’s novel Thaïs

This study uses a phenomenological perspective supported by Foucault’s ‘hermeneutics of the self’ to analyse Anatole France’s novel Thaïs. The novel narrates the story of a Christian hermit, Paphnutius, and a courtesan, Thaïs. Living an abstemious life in the desert and reflecting on his sins of the past, Paphnutius recalls having met a delightful actress, Thaïs and how she seduced men, including him, into the sins of the flesh. Taken in by his exhortations, she leaves all her wealth and possessions and follows the monk to attain eternal beauty and bliss. Paphnutius successfully converts Thaïs to the courtesan before she dies as a ‘purified’ soul. However, after her conversion, Thaïs’s desire and love afflict Paphnutius, who ends up doubting the truth of his faith. When he comes to know that Thaïs is on her deathbed, he starts having doubts about the reality of death and hence of God/his belief. We attempt to add a theoretically driven analysis and set forth a few observations. This paper argues that Thaïs is the story of complex human interactions revolving around the axes of truth and subjectivity and provides an excellent narration of the aesthetics of existence in the pagan and early Christian world.

The discursive strategies of power and female resistance in margret atwood's the handmaid's tale: a foucauldian reading

This paper examines the use of certain discursive strategies and the consequent female resistance in Margret Atwood novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985. The novel portrays different forms of power exercised by totalitarian governments over women. In complex ways, Margret Atwood uses the feminist dystopian genre to resist gender-based oppression. To do so, Atwood must first build a miserable world that subjugates their female characters before she can create ways for these characters to resist. The events of The Handmaid's Tale, like most dystopian stories, take place in the future, but they express the anger and anxieties of the present, and more women speak out against sexual assault and harassment. This study applies Michel Foucault's concepts of power relations through discursive strategies in Margret Atwood's “The Handmaid’s Tale”. More explicitly, the research tries to shed light on the discursive practices used to control women's minds and bodies in a way that guarantees complete obedience to a specific ideology. The study also shows how women use strategies of language and education to resist and free themselves from the oppression imposed on them. These types of fiction have always been sites of power conflict, reflecting the atrocities committed against the public by those in power. It is concluded that Foucault's ideas about discourse and power explain why women are oppressed by totalitarian regimes and how they use the same power to build a discourse of resistance to free themselves from oppression and disciplinary power.

Embodied, caring and disciplinary: A Foucauldian reading of ‘process time’ as constitutive of the biopolitical institution of the family

‘Process time’ describes the recursive/fluid, social and embodied temporality that characterises much ‘women's work’. Though this concept has proven highly useful to feminist analyses of caring and other feminised labour, there has arguably been a tendency for authors in this area to naturalise and valorise this temporality – particularly in relation to the abstract, economic and disciplinary time of the clock. I argue that this naturalisation or valorisation of process time flattens our understanding of feminised labour, and that a feminist social theory of time must recognise the potentially disciplinary forms process time can take. As such, this paper contributes to feminist analyses of time, gender and labour by arguing that the embodied, caring and processual temporality that circulates within modern families can be understood as fundamentally disciplinary. Drawing primarily on Foucauldian theory, as well as Sharon Hays’ concept of ‘intensive mothering’, the paper argues that process time is central to the functioning of the family as a biopolitical institution, just as clock time is integral to the disciplinary mechanisms of the school, prison, barracks, etc. Specifically, it argues that the unique relations of power that circulate within the biopolitical family rely on a unique use of time: one that is intensive and oriented towards the rhythms of the physical body – that is, processual. Further, this disciplinary time is deeply and fundamentally feminine, as it operates (in its ideal form) primarily through the mother.

A Foucauldian Reading of Utopias/Dystopias in Selected Novels by Margaret Atwood

The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of utopian systems by investigating Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986), The Testaments (2019) and The Heart Goes Last (2015). Set in different ages, the selected novels discuss the changes that happen in the lives of different characters who live in utopian societies that eventually turn into dystopias. The theoretical framework applied in this study is Michel Foucault’s theory of power specifically the concepts of surveillance, discourse, and governmentality. ‘Surveillance’ is the continuous observation and assessment of citizens. ‘Discourse’ is the language that shapes a society’s relationships and constitute knowledge and meaning. Lastly, ‘governmentality’ is implementing certain rules and regulations in order to manipulate the minds of the citizens. These three concepts allow the people in authority to control the lives of the citizens. The study proves the futility of applying utopian systems in the real world as they always fail and turn into dystopias instead.

Mastering Otherness with a Look: On the Politics of the Gaze and Technological Possibility in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun

ABSTRACT This article examines the transformative effects of adding gaze theory to the critical approaches that have focused on Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021). Drawing on the issues of looking dynamics and surveillance in Michel Foucault’s epistemology of the gaze, the argument is that a Foucauldian reading of Ishiguro’s story uncovers the dependence of its power relations on gazing practices. By exploring the humanoid robot Klara’s storyline, I highlight the dual role of the gaze and related visual dynamics in Klara and the Sun as both facilitators of humans’ mastery of nonhumans and sites of nonhuman possibility. My analysis suggests that the novel articulates a complex disciplinary system in which the technological Other is constantly reified by both the human gaze and internalized practices of self-discipline. At the same time, against the reductive reading of Klara as a technological Other at the service of human selves, this article also proposes her figure as one of transgressive boundaries and gaze-engendered opposition, arguing that the novel’s social system is ultimately undermined by the visual acts of overconformity that Klara adopts.

A Foucauldian Reading of Utopias/Dystopias in Selected Novels by Margaret Atwood

The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of utopian systems by investigating Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986), The Testaments (2019) and The Heart Goes Last (2015). Set in different ages, the selected novels discuss the changes that happen in the lives of different characters who live in utopian societies that eventually turn into dystopias. The theoretical framework applied in this study is Michel Foucault’s theory of power specifically the concepts of surveillance, discourse, and governmentality. ‘Surveillance’ is the continuous observation and assessment of citizens. ‘Discourse’ is the language that shapes a society’s relationships and constitute knowledge and meaning. Lastly, ‘governmentality’ is implementing certain rules and regulations in order to manipulate the minds of the citizens. These three concepts allow the people in authority to control the lives of the citizens. The study proves the futility of applying utopian systems in the real world as they always fail and turn into dystopias instead.

The Making of the Docile Female Body in Korean American Young Adult Literature: A Feminist Foucauldian Reading of An Na’s The Fold (2008)

The Making of the Docile Female Body in Korean American Young Adult Literature: A Feminist Foucauldian Reading of An Na’s The Fold (2008)

Docile or Not-So-Docile Women:A Foucauldian Reading of Ismat Chughtai’s “Gainda,” “Gharwali” and “Chui-Mui”

Ismat Chughtai is one of the most celebrated South Asian women writers from the past century. Hence, most of the scholarship based on her few female characters from a select few stories largely deals with analysing the nature of female desire and sexuality. In this paper, we have extended the focus from sexual repression to the analysis of the power-paradigm in the space called zenana (domestic space)and its role in producing docile bodies. By using a Foucauldian framework in her lesser-explored short stories, namely, “Gainda” (transl. “Gainda”), “Gharwali” (transl. “The Homemaker”), and “Chui-Mui” (transl. “Touch-me-not”), we aim to explore the themes of surveillance, norms, and punishment and how these play a role in training individuals to be obedient to power structures and institutions. Moreover, we want to explore whether they always produce homogenised bodies or if there is a space for individual agency.

Modern Postural Yoga and the Health-Spirituality-Neoliberalism Nexus

The practice of yoga has become an integral part of practitioners’ lifestyles, spirituality and therapeutic paths across the world, not to mention institutional and governmental interventions of a pedagogical, rehabilitative and political nature in settings as diverse as schools, hospitals and prisons. While social science literature has explored some of these areas of analysis, we currently know little about how particular conceptions of health and wellbeing, of the sacred and of the economic-political continuum overlap, diverge and reciprocally influence each other, with reference to yoga and beyond. Using the example of “modern postural yoga”, this article aims to provide a preliminary account of what we term the Health-Spirituality-Neoliberalism Nexus, that is, of the ways in which different “social fields”, such as the medical/therapeutic, the spiritual/religious and the political/economic fields, are partly governed by the same practical-discursive logics and display profound “symbiotic relationships”. More specifically, this article elucidates how specific health discourses, centred around practitioners’ self-care, self-responsibility and self-control, dominate not only the medical/therapeutic field, but also the landscape of contemporary spiritualities and the widespread neoliberal ethos that characterizes the current social, political and economic model of Westernized societies. Here, the categories of physical and psychological health, the idea of a fulfilling spiritual life, and economic success display deep “elective affinities” that we seek to uncover by mobilizing a series of foundational sociological concepts such as the Bourdieusian notion of “field” and a Foucauldian reading of “biopolitics” and “governmentality”.

Middle-class Morality as Panopticon: A Foucauldian Reading of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

Middle-class Morality as Panopticon: A Foucauldian Reading of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

The horror of death: A Foucauldian reading of power relations in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899) addresses the brutality underlying Europe’s colonisation of Africa. Its film adaptation, Apocalypse Now (1979), shows the US Army’s radical practices in the Vietnam War. A comparative study of power relations on both works will help understand the workings of power in extreme sociopolitical circumstances devoid of a democratic environment. This article analyses both cultural products under the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault’s writings on power. Three conceptual nuclei where power relations emanate are scrutinised independently: imperialism and the resulting local resistance; internal hierarchies in colonial organisations; and the role of gender. The analysis shows that absolute power is intolerable, death its ultimate limit, and confession its main liberating mechanism.

The horror of death: A Foucauldian reading of power relations in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899) addresses the brutality underlying Europe’s colonisation of Africa. Its film adaptation, Apocalypse Now (1979), shows the US Army’s radical practices in the Vietnam War. A comparative study of power relations on both works will help understand the workings of power in extreme sociopolitical circumstances devoid of a democratic environment. This article analyses both cultural products under the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault’s writings on power. Three conceptual nuclei where power relations emanate are scrutinised independently: imperialism and the resulting local resistance; internal hierarchies in colonial organisations; and the role of gender. The analysis shows that absolute power is intolerable, death its ultimate limit, and confession its main liberating mechanism.

A Foucauldian Reading of Fathia al-Assal's The Women's Prison

A Foucauldian Reading of Fathia al-Assal's The Women's Prison

The Struggle between the Dharma Bums and the Police: A Foucauldian Reading of The Dharma Bums

This study aimed to examine and analyze the novel The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac based on the political theory of Michel Foucault. This semi-fictional account is the story of search for the original experience and enlightenment and introduces the character of Gary Snyder as Japhy Ryder who is a poet, critical thinker, philosopher and political radical, and Ray Smith, the alter ego of Jack Kerouac himself. The main focus would be on Foucault’s conceptions of power, power relations, institutions, normalization, and surveillance. This study will also seek to provide a true understanding of the life and times of Jack Kerouac. Moreover, it represents the cultural, political, and historical background based on which Kerouac had written his work. Kerouac’s novel represents the spirit of the age of a people who sought change, difference, and disobedience; the main characters are antiheroes who challenge their prisonlike structure of the society. In contrast, the government has the upper hand by means of its distinct and overlapping institutions that not only neutralize such acts or resistances but make normal and ordinary those individuals who were themselves the promoters and examples of abnormality.

Discontinuous History and Magical Realism: A Foucauldian Reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant

Michel Foucault’s archaeological approach to history contests Hegelian understanding of evolutionary and progressive history which presupposes an ultimate arrival at a perfect form of society. For Foucault, history does not follow a linear, dialectical line within a cause-and-effect relationship. Each historical period has its own conditions of truth and between these periods, there are breaks, twists, ruptures and discontinuities determined by power relations in that society. These historical transformations occur following a change in épistèmé which connotes to the available set of knowledge produced by discursive practices in a particular period. Within this context, this study aims to analyse historical discontinuities in Kazuo Ishiguro’s magical realist novel, The Buried Giant (2015). In the novel, by benefiting from generic potentials of magical realism, and effectively exploiting the medieval romance, Ishiguro creates a quasimythological historical account of the Anglo-Saxon period. In his version, King Arthur makes Merlin perform a spell on a dragon. Due to the spell, the Britons and the Saxons suffer memory loss which causes historical discontinuities. Moreover, while the spell confines the people into a perpetual here and now, it grants Arthur absolute political power. The study will focus on these discontinuities and present a Foucauldian reading of the text. The study will also theoretically connect Foucault’s discontinuous history with magical realism, which may broaden our understanding of Ishiguro’s text.

Disciplinary power and practices of body politics: an evaluation of Dalit women in Bama\u2019s Sangati and P. Sivakami\u2019s The Grip of Change through Foucauldian discourse analysis

Through a Foucauldian reading of Bama’s Sangati (2005) and P. Sivakami’s The Grip of Change (2006a, 2006b), this paper attempts to delineate the permeation and maintenance of disciplinary power in the social structure and assertion of patriarchal politics in the subjugation of Dalit female bodies. The detrimental politics of patriarchal discourse, the paper argues, degrades the existence of Dalit women, and excludes them from the equation of power relations by delimiting their access to society’s productive resources and restricting their sexuality. Disciplinary power, which acts as a patriarchal tool, prescribes acceptable gestures and required behaviour, and through constant surveillance normalizes a dominant male order. It reduces Dalit women’s existence into an amorphous property, readily mutilated and moulded under the whims of a phallocentric order. Discursive practices further constitute practices of body politics, making the female body an object of active site of political struggle. The paper studies Sangati and The Grip of Change as literary exemplars to demonstrate how disciplinary power, as underscored by Foucault’s discourse analysis, intervenes and determines the life of Dalit women. It not only lays bare the covert body politics of patriarchy with the unfiltered depiction of women’s exploitation and atrocities, but also represents a paradigm shift by advocating ways of emancipation for Dalit women.