[lbo-talk] Merely cultural and post-Situ

[B.]

I'd lately been intrigued that Foucault rarely, if
ever, addressed internment camps, concentration camps,
and especially death camps, since he covered the
prison and the mental asylum so well. Foucault covered
fascism, yes -- but its specific crystallization in
the form of the death camp? Maybe a passing reference
in The Care of the Self on one or two pages, or a
minor reference in a lecture, but nothing like his
direct focus on penology.

Then I found Giorgio Agamben, and, honestly, since
I've read Agamben I've found Foucault a lot easier to
grasp or "get." My advice to anyone approaching
Foucault would be to work backwards through Agamben,
who applies Foucauldian analyses to Guantanamo, WW2
concentration camps, and seems to conceive of
nation-states as sleeping Auscwhitzes, waiting to be
roused from their slumber. I found Agamben's
explanation of "the self" and esp. "bio-power" (in
_Homo Sacer_) enabled me to go backwards and make more
sense of Foucault's description.

-B.

BklynMagus wrote:
> Try late Foucault and his idea of the care of the
self.
>
> See also the just published "Foucault's Askesis: An
Introduction to the Philosophical Life" by Edward F.
McGushin which I have been dip;ping into over the
weekend.  Foucault brings back the self, but in a new
way.