The Birth of Territory reviewed in The Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies by Whanyung Kim

There is a a review essay on The Birth of Territory in The Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies by Whanyung Kim. This a journal of the Northeast Asian History Network, but the review is in English and is open access (Vol 1, No 2, Summer/Fall, 2014, pp. 135-140).

The review is generally very positive, but rightly points out the limits of the book temporally – it ends with the late seventeenth century – and geographically, with its focus on the West. But rather than just highlight or criticise this, the author begins to sketch how the story might be extended to the present, or the comparative work that might be necessary to tell the story for elsewhere.

The Birth of Territory can serve as the basis of a research agenda: a global and comparative history of territory. The book in fact provides a methodological model for writing The Birth of Territory in China and The Birth of Territory in India. The “genealogical account” could be applied to make a narrative about the evolution of territory in China from its rise in ancient China to its perfection in the form of “the-all-under-Heaven” concept before the impact of the West. Similarly, a historical review of the evolution of territory in India will yield interesting insights. For instance, the historical meaning of the ancient term janapada—a compound word composed of janas “people” or “subject” and pada “foot”—could be analyzed. Janapada is particularly intriguing as a concept because it has had a double meaning of “realm, territory” and “subject population.”

There is much more in the piece itself.

Many thanks to Iain Watson for alerting me to this essay.

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Verso – Space and Power: Celebrating the life of Edward Soja (1940-2015)

postmodern_geographVerso have published an online extract from Ed Soja’s Postmodern Geographies: the Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, on the production of space and power in Los Angeles.

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Michel Foucault, la politique comme guerre continuée. De la guerre des races au racisme d’État, Sur le Cours au Collège de France, “Il faut défendre la société” (2015)

New French book on Foucault’s 1975-76 lecture course.

Clare O'Farrell's avatarFoucault News

groulxRichard Groulx, Michel Foucault, la politique comme guerre continuée. De la guerre des races au racisme d’État, Sur le Cours au Collège de France, “Il faut défendre la société”, Paris: Editions l’Harmattan, 2015.

La guerre est-elle un accident des sociétés ou appartient-elle à leur constitution même ? Telle est la question posée par Foucault dans son Cours de 1976 « Il faut défendre la société ». Renversant le célèbre aphorisme de Clausewitz sur « la guerre prolongée par la politique », il démontre comment un « dispositif de guerre » s’est introduit dans le discours politique moderne comme « guerre continuée » ou guerre nécessaire à la fois comme guerre des races, lutte des classes, social racisme et racisme d’État.

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Several Essays on Deleuze at LARB

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The Political Philosophy of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze conference — final schedule

Final schedule for the Foucault and Deleuze conference in Indiana.

Keith Harris's avatarMy Desiring-Machines

The final schedule for the conference at Purdue this weekend has been posted. Not only am I going, but I’ve found myself moderating a panel on which Marcelo Hoffman and Marco Altamirano will be presenting. Of particular interest is the forthcoming online publication of a transcription, and I presume a translation, of Deleuze’s 1979-80 seminar “Appareils d’Etat et Machines de Guerre” (Apparatuses of State and War Machines). I’ll post details from West Lafayette, Indiana as I learn more.

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Books received – Shakespeare, Capitalism in the Web of Life and Fossil Capital

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Two re-editions from the Penguin Shakespeare and two books sent by Verso – Jason W. Moore’s Capitalism in the Web of Life and Andreas Malm’s Fossil Capital.

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Foucault’s Collaborative Projects – seminar at LSE, November 10th, 4.30pm

Tomorrow I will be giving a talk entitled “Foucault’s Collaborative Projects: Hospitals, Habitat, and Public Infrastructure” to the Cities, Space and Development seminar series of the Department of Geography & Environment, at the London School of Economics at 4.30pm. It will be held in the New Academic Building, room NAB 1.07. Full details here.

The collaborative projects I have in mind are several of the ones listed here or in the photograph below – works that are not very well-known even in France – and some of the archival traces surrounding them.

Most of the talk draws on the manuscript of Foucault: The Birth of Power, though a few bits are taken from Foucault’s Last Decade.

Collaborative projects

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Foucault’s Last Decade cover

Foucault's Last Decade coverI’ve been waiting to share the cover of Foucault’s Last Decade until the Polity Press webpage was complete, but it is now up on Amazon, so here it is. It will form a pair with Foucault: The Birth of Power – this book with a picture of Foucault the scholar; that book with a picture of Foucault the activist. Much more information on the two books is here.

(The mock-Latin text is just a placeholder until endorsements are in.)

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Derrida’s 1964-65 seminar ‘Heidegger: The Question of Being and History’ to appear in English in April 2016

DerridaNews of the next translation of the Derrida seminars – 1964-65’s Heidegger: The Question of Being and History, forthcoming in April 2016. After a bit of a delay it seems the seminars are on again – the second volume of La peine de la mort came out in French in October 2015. The listed forthcoming ones are seemingly running at least a year behind the projected schedule.

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Research Associate post at Durham’s IBRU: Centre for Borders Research

Durham University seeks to employ a full-time Research Associate to contribute to the work of IBRU, an interdisciplinary training and academic research entity based in Durham University’s Department of Geography. This is a fixed-term appointment which will terminate no later than 31st July 2016.
IBRU combines core competencies at the intersection of political geography and comparative and public international law with critical perspectives on borders and bordering. The Research Associate will contribute to ongoing research, conference, and publication projects being undertaken or proposed by IBRU as well as initiating her or his own projects that fall within IBRU’s thematic remit. IBRU is particularly seeking a Research Associate who can contribute to ongoing research on the legal status of sea ice, the political-legal context of seabed mining, and the ways in which maritime spaces and borders are encountered in global refugee and migration flows. The Research Associate will contribute to the development and preparation of research grant applications, journal articles and other academic outputs. Additionally, depending on the Research Associate’s skills and experience, the Research Associate may contribute to IBRU’s training activities in boundary delimitation, demarcation, and dispute resolution.

Closing date 5 December 2015 – full details here

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