This seminar serves as a concerted investigation into the question of power by way of an introduction tonthe thought of one of the most influential interdisciplinary social theorist of the 20th century, MichelnFoucault (1926–1984). What is power and what dominant forms has power taken in the modern world? Tonanswer such questions, seminar participants will explore Foucault’s various grammars of power:nsovereignty, biopolitics, governmentality and neoliberalism, and examine in particular the relationshipnbetween knowledge, power and subjectivity. Given that the concept of power is absolutely central to anynunderstanding of society and the human condition, the course also serves as a useful introduction to corenconcepts in the humanities and social sciences. As such a concomitant but key emphasis of this seminarnwill also be on the question of what it means to think critically. This question has two components: whatndoes it mean to think (what is thinking?) and secondly, what is critical? Given that the word critique isnetymologically linked to the word crisis, we may reformulate our semester’s investigations as a concernnfor understanding the nature of the global crisis of the present.nWe will also look at some of the core philosophical influences on Foucault’s work: namely FredericknNietzsche and Martin Heidegger. And lastly we may make a brief foray into the difficult and utterly novelnthought of legendary Italian theorist Giorgio Agamben, who has continued to develop Foucault’snconceptual apparatus into new arenas of thought and analysis.
