Foucault’s Late Politics

Contributors to this special issue examine the complex material of French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The authors point out the richness of Foucault’s thought and political commitment, spanning from the complex figure of “political spirituality” in his 1980s texts; his remarkable late internationalism, as he traversed the globe from Iran to Japan to Brazil and across North America; and his political experimentation with new possibilities of the “political subject.” Emphasizing the crucial dimensions of Foucault’s work in the later years of his life, the authors argue that the insights and contours of this work largely remain to be discovered as a repository of emancipatory, radical politics for our time.

Contributors: Asad Haider, Yoshihiko Ichida, Ken Kawashima, Benjamin Noys, Johanna Oksala, Judith Revel, Panagiotis Sotiris, Alberto Toscano, Gavin Walker