Foucault Beyond Foucault: Power and Its Intensifications since 1984

by Jeffrey T. Nealon

In Foucault Beyond Foucault Jeffrey Nealon argues that critics have too hastily abandoned Foucault's mid-career reflections on power, and offers a revisionist reading of the philosopher's middle and later works. Retracing power's "intensification" in Foucault, Nealon argues that forms of political power remain central to Foucault's concerns. He allows us to reread Foucault's own conceptual itinerary and, more importantly, to think about how we might respond to the mutations of power that have taken place since the philosopher's death in 1984. In this, the book stages an overdue encounter between Foucault and post-Marxist economic history.

Genres: Philosophy

146 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2007

About the author

Jeffrey T. Nealon is Professor of English at Penn State University. He is the author of "Double Reading: Postmodernism after Deconstruction" (1993), "Alterity Politics: Ethics and Performative Subjectivity" (1998), and "The Theory Toolbox" (2003).

Reviews

[Kristupas Čeilutka · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 but towards 4.

Honestly, the book did not go beyond Foucault, nor even knew the whole Foucault (but faulting the author for not knowing BB and STP that were as of that time untranslated would be unfair). The issue of intensification was what drew me to the book and it was discussed reasonably well but I think thinking through more concrete modalities of how intensification occurs that would actually go beyond what Foucault wrote (but certainly Foucault would encourage that) would have made the work stronger. The question of resistance in Foucault is addressed extremely well thought, dispelling many myths prevalent among many interested in Foucault.

[The Awdude · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's great about this book is how quickly and succinctly Nealon is able to trace the "intensification" of Foucault's power theory, and then to flesh out his own conceptual framework for how to amend and appropriate Foucauldian theory for analyses of power in the context of today's global capitalism. Nealon approaches Foucault as a Deleuzo-Marxist. He speaks about the transition from the age of sovereign power to that of disciplinary power and biopower in unapologetically economic metaphors; the result, I think, is the long-belated synthesis of Foucault's work and the latter-day Marxism from which Foucault tried to depart. Among the important points to take from Foucault Beyond Foucault: power and resistance are one and the same, biopower operates in the private sector, and the crux of a neo-Foucauldian ethics would find its foundation in the capacity to exercise power/resistance in new directions. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, but this is also the problem with Nealon's book: much like History of Sexuality Vol. 1, it's too short and too general. But I think this is an important book. I will definitely be returning to it this weekend when I'm trolling for good citations to back up my paper on the "memoirization" of power-knowledge. Check it out, Foucauldians. But remember: Lacan already said everything, only better. Hehe.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does an excellent job of showing that that power does not disappear from the "later Foucault." The author traces the development of Foucault's views on power from Discipline and Punish as well as History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 through the lecture courses where he develops the notion of "governmentality."