Course Syllabus
HSTRY 509A: Foucault and History Winter 2025
Prof. Vicente Rafael, vrafael@uw.edu Office: Smith 116A
“The history of ideas, then, is the discipline of beginnings and ends, the description of obscure continuities and returns, the reconstitution of developments in the linear form of history. But it can also, by that very fact, describe, from one domain to another, the whole interplay of exchanges and intermediaries: it shows how scientific knowledge is diffused, gives rise to philosophical concepts, and takes form perhaps in literary works; it shows how problems, notions, themes may emigrate from the philosophical field where they were formulated to scientific or political discourses; it relates work with institutions, social customs or behavior, techniques, and unrecorded needs and practices; it tries to revive the most elaborate forms of discourse in the concrete landscape, in the midst of the growth and development that witnessed their birth. It becomes therefore the discipline of interferences, the description of the concentric circles that surround works, underline them, relate them to one another, and insert them into whatever they are not.” -- Foucault
“Becoming isn’t part of history; history amounts only to a set of preconditions, however recent, that one leaves behind in order to ‘become,’ that is, to create something new.” –Deleuze
“Always historicize!” --Jameson
“Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.” --Benjamin
What is this course about?
In this seminar we will ask about the usefulness of Foucault for thinking about history and thinking historically. We will begin with the question of method, the politics and ethics of critique, and an overview of the relationship among power, knowledge and subjectivity in the context of modernity that undergirds Foucault’s writings. Much of our discussion will focus on a set of the lectures he gave on war, race, security, governmentality, biopolitics and the ethics of truth-telling in the care of the self from the 1970s at the College de France.
Please note that this is a reading intensive seminar whose success or failure will hinge on your completing the readings, or at least as much of it as you can, while actively contributing to seminar discussions, bringing your ideas and experiences to bear on the texts that we will be reading.
Requirements include:
- completing the assigned readings,
- attending each class,
- taking responsibility to lead at least one week’s discussion while providing a short commentary (2-3 pages max.) on the readings for that week for the class.
- the majority of your grade will come from writing a research paper on a topic related to the course. If you are unable to come up with a paper topic, you also have the option to take a final exam. It will consist of a set of several questions, 3 on which you’ll be asked to write about.
Your papers will be due on Tuesday, March 11, no later than 5:30pm by e-mail attachment to vrafael@uw.edu If you anticipate having any problems meeting this deadline, please contact me as soon as possible.
Required Texts (all the readings are available on Canva; at the UW Library; and print editions at the U Bookstore and the usual online retailers):
Reading Packet available at the Canvas site for this class. https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1232703
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Vintage, 1988 (originally 1961).
__________. History of Sexuality, v.1. Vintage, 1990 (first published in 1976)
__________, On the Punitive Society: Lectures at the College de France, 1972-73, Palgrave, 2015
_________, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-1976, Picador, 2003.
_________, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-1978, Picador, 2009.
_________, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-1979, Picador, 2010.
_________, The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the College de France, 1983-84, Picador, 2012.
Recommended Texts:
Timothy Campbell and Adam Sitze, eds., Biopolitics: A Reader, Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2013, on Canvas.
Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, New York: Pantheon, 1984. (selections on Canvas site).
David Macey, The Lives of Michel Foucault, New York: Pantheon Books, 1993, https://archive.org/details/livesofmichelfou00mace/page/n5/mode/2up
Schedule of Classes:
Jan. 7: Introduction
Read the following texts found on the Canvas site:
- Trombadori, “Interview with Michel Foucault” on Canvas site.
Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, on Canvas site.
Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, selection on Canvas site.
Jan. 14:
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
Jan. 21
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, v. 1.
No meeting on this day. I have a medical thing to attend to. Please read this text. We’ll have the occasion to pick up on this book throughout the quarter, especially the week of Feb. 18.
Jan. 28
Michel Foucault, On the Punitive Society: Lectures at the College de France, 1972-73
Recommended:
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (on Canvas)
Film: Charlie Chaplain, "Modern Time" (available on various streaming platforms)
“Considerations on Marxism, Phenomenology and Power,” Interview with Michel Foucault; Recorded on April 3rd, 1978, Michel Foucault, Colin Gordon, and Paul Patton, Canvas site
Optional (for context):
Karl Marx and Friederich Engels, “The Communist Manifesto” in the Marx-Engels Reader, ed. by Robert Tucker, (on Canvas Reader).
Karl Marx, Capital, v.I, selections in Marx-Engels Reader, (various editions), ed. by Robert Tucker, 302-343 (on Canvas Reader).
Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, 169-256. (on Canvas)
Feb. 4:
Michele Foucault, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-1976.
Recommended:
Rey Chow, "Foucault, Race and Racism," in Lisa Downing, ed., After Foucault: Culture, Theory and Criticism in the Twenty First Century, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018, on Canvas site.
Feb. 11:
Michel Foucault, Security, Population, Territory: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-1978.
Recommended:
Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” on Canvas site.
Vicente Rafael, "The Sovereign Trickster", on Canvas site.
Feb. 18:
Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-1979
Recommended:
Wendy Brown, Neoliberalism and the end of Liberal Democracy
Shelley Lyn Tremain, ed., Foucault and the Government of Disability
Feb. 25:
Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth: Lectures at the College de France, 1983-84
Recommended: Paul Rabinow, The Foucault Reader, 331-380.
March 4: Open day to catch up, meet or work on your papers.
March 11: Final papers/exams due, Tuesday, 5:30pm by e-mail: vrafael@uw.edu