Faculty
Professor Mariana Valverde, University of Toronto. Professor Sverre Raffnsøe, Department of Management, Politics & Philosophy, CBS. Associate Professor Thomas Lemke, Institute of Social Research, University of Frankfurt am Main. Associate Professor Kaspar Villadsen, Department of Management, Politics & Philosophy, CBS. Ph.d. Scholar Mads Peter Karlsen, Department of Theology, University of Copenhagen

Course Coordinator
Kaspar Villadsen

The course will provide the participants with an updated introduction to key analytical concepts in the Governmentality literature, and the potentials and weaknesses of these concepts will be discussed. Furthermore, a detailed consideration of the current status of governmentality studies and post Foucauldian studies will be given, in particular in light of recent claims for a crisis of critique. Finally, suggestions will by presented on how to elaborate or move beyond the framework of governmentality by activating concepts of bio-politics and sovereignty. In brief, the course aims to provide participants with a thorough understanding of the governmentality framework, that is, its analytical possibilities, its current status, and its possible directions of development.

Over the last 20 years, post-Foucauldian “governmentality studies” have come to growing prominence. These studies have been effective in critically analysing new types of liberal government, in particular by demonstrating ‘the active side of laissez faire’. They describe how the motto of ‘pulling back the state’ has been accompanied by a series of governmental strategies and technologies aimed at shaping institutions and subjects in particular ways. Perhaps most noticeably, they have presented a diagnosis of a proliferation of regimes of entrepreneurialism and economic accountancy in new and surprising places. But a wide range of other domains have been subjected to governmentality analysis spanning from genetic screening and risk calculation, over new crime prevention strategies, to health promotion by self-responsibilisation. To be sure, the concepts in governmentality literature continue to play effective tools for critical social analysis.

Nevertheless, in recent years critical objections have been raised against the governmentality approach. It has been noted by some observers that the Foucauldian and post-structuralist language, originally used for critical academic purposes, seems to be increasingly appropriated by ‘the powers’ that were the object of such critique. Most notably, this point has been voiced (although in different versions) by Zizek, Boltanski, and Hardt & Negri. These thinkers suggest that a post-structural ’politics of difference’ increasingly seems to be an integral part of the ways, in which institutions and companies organise themselves. If modern liberal government has begun to speak for the dissolution of binary essentials, the destabilisation of rigid power structures, the creation of space for the subject’s self-transforming work upon itself, and so on We need to think of ways to revitalise the Foucauldian concepts of critique. A central theme of the PhD course is the search for effective analytical strategies for critique of power (some perhaps less noticed) in the works of Foucault and other writers in the governmentality tradition.

The course accordingly encourages the submission of papers that deal with conceptual problems or analytical designs in relation to Foucauldian inspired/governmentality studies. Furthermore, papers that apply Foucauldian concepts to empirical problems in variety of domains are welcomed. It is also possible to participate on the basis of an abstract stating the theme of the PhD project.

Lecture plan

Time/period	Faculty	Title
Wednesday, 8 October
09:00-10:30	Kaspar Villadsen	Analytical approaches in Governmentality studies
11:00-12:30	Mariana Valverde	How to move beyond Governemntality?
12:30-13:30		Lunch
13:30-16:00	Kaspar Villadsen	Papers from PhD students
Thursday, 9 October
9:00-17:00	Seminar on 'How to study power' Full day program. (Joint seminar with The School of Education, Copenhagen)
Friday, 10 October
09:00-10:30	Thomas Lemke	Governmentality and Bio-politics
11:00-12:30	Mads Peter Karlsen and Kaspar Villadsen	Betraying Foucault? Politics of difference & critique
12:30-13:30		Lunch
13:30-15:00	Sverre Raffnsøe	Disposive analysis: the key analytical strategy of Foucault?
15:00-16:00	Kaspar Villadsen	Papers from PhD students

The course will use lectures given by invited specialists, common discussions, and presentation of papers from PhD students. Participation in a conference on analysis of power is part of the course programme.

Foucault, M. (1991) “Governmentality”, in: G. Burchell et al. (eds.) The Foucault Effect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Deleuze, G. (1990) Postscript on Control Societies, in: G. Deleuze: Negotiations 1972-1990. New York: Columbia University Press

Raffnsøe, S. & Gudmand-Høyer, M. The Dispositive, Unpublished article

Valverde, M. (2007) Genealogies of European States: Foucauldian Reflections, in: Economy and Society, vol. 36, no. 1

Some more literature - TBA.

Send your application before 8 September, 2008 to Anja Dupont ( ad.lpf@cbs.dk).