Theories of Biopower
In recent discussions about the shape, scope, and formation of power in the context of economic globalization and neoliberalism the idea of biopower (first developed by Michel Foucault) has gained a degree of primacy. In this course we will explore the possibilities and pitfalls of biopower as a description and analysis of power in the contemporary moment. In so doing we will first seek to construct a genealogy of the term within Foucault’s work and across a variety of philosophical and theoretical texts that directly engage Foucault. In the second part of the course we will explore recent scholarship that implicitly supplements, augments, or in other ways “corrects” the theory of biopower through engagement with questions of population control and containment, sexuality, racial formation, and the biological body. The aim of the seminar will thus be threefold: 1) to excavate a genealogy of the concept of biopower in Foucault’s work; 2) to explore the various ways in which this concept has been set to work by other thinkers; and 3) to collectively expand and refine the concept of biopower for ourselves, with the goal of making the concept useful for our own political and scholarly purposes.

The readings: we will begin the course by reading a number of texts by Foucault including volume one of the History of Sexuality; several lectures from “Society Must be Defended,” and essays on “governmentality” and “technologies of the self” If time permits we may also cover Discipline and Punish. We will then move on to Giorgio Agamben’s reworking of the concept of biopower, and Thomas Malthus’s pre-figuration of the idea of population in his Essay on the Principal of Population. In the second part of the course we will engage a range of readings that explore the production of power over populations and bodies in the context of Euro-American imperialism and neo-liberalism including those by Hannah Arendt, Uday Singh Mehta, Elizabeth Povinelli, Mae Ngai, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore.

Expectations: During the course of the quarter you will work collaboratively with colleagues in presenting key seminar texts to the group. You will also be expected to keep a reading journal and to respond in writing to the work of your colleagues on a weekly basis. Formal paper abstracts will be due during week 6 and a final conference length paper at the end of the quarter.