scholarly journals The Appearance of an Interminable Natural History and its Ends Foucault’s Lectures on The Birth of Biopolitics at the Collège de France 1979

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Sverre Raffnsøe ◽  
Knut Ove Eliassen
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Body ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Reason Of State ◽  
Good Government

While the analysis of liberalism fills much of The Birth of Biopolitics, the focus of Foucault’s discussion is on the dynamic, equivocal and enigmatic contemporary condition at the intersection of welfare governance, biopolitics and neo-liberalism of the late seventies. This article examines The Birth of Biopolitics as a prolongation of Security, Territoriality and Population by analyzing how Foucault frames liberalism in the wider historical context of governmentality. In Foucault’s view, governmentality should be understood as a secular rationalization of the art of government. While the pastoral power of the Catholic Church was wielded against the backdrop of eschatology and the imminence of the end of worldly power, the early modern concept of reason of state brought with it the idea of an interminable history. Governmentality and reason of state spring from an undecided and precarious European balance of power between competing states. In order to measure up to external competition, individual states are required to develop a system of policing that collects detailed knowledge of the body politic. Insofar as the logic of the population as a collection of living beings comes to the fore as a primary target of government intervention, the imperatives of biopolitics and the politics of health arise. Liberalism forms an important modification of the double heritage of reason of state and biopolitics. This is a rationalization of government that, rather than breaking with the fundamental assumptions of governmentality, critically addresses the basic criteria for good government. Stressing the necessity for good government to acknowledge and incorporate the self-regulation of the population it governs, liberalism thus articulates a new kind of naturalness intrinsic to the population springing from the interaction between individuals motivated by self-interest. As a basic principle for its understanding of governing, liberalism embraces a natural history without any transcendental horizons, a secular and tragic natural history in which freedom can never be taken for granted insofar as its participants constantly constitute a danger for one another. It is also a mode of history in which the art of government is constantly called upon and forced to organize and secure the conditions for the exercise and development of freedom. For Foucault, thus, the liberal art of government is not a position to be affirmed or denied. Rather, the liberal art of government draws the outline of an experience of historicity that is an experience of an ongoing and unsettling, but also unending, crisis.

Mugwump Cartoonists, the Papacy, and Tammany Hall in America’s Gilded Age

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel J. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Tammany Hall ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Irish Catholics ◽  
The Catholic Church

AbstractIn the Gilded Age of extreme partisan politics, Puck magazine, the nation's premier journal of graphic humor and political satire, played an important role as a non-partisan crusader for good government and the triumph of American constitutional ideals. Its prime targets, however, were not just corrupt machine politicians. The magazine included as well what it, like the letterpress, condemned as the nefarious political agenda of the Catholic church, especially its new pope, Leo XIII. Indeed, New York's infamous Tammany Hall, committed to spoils and patronage as the means of dominating the body politic, was all the more dangerous to Puck because, beginning in the 1870s, Irish Catholics dominated it. The hall's Irish Catholic base enabled the magazine to rationalize more completely its conviction that the Catholic church, ruled by a foreign potentate dressed in the irrational garb of infallibility, was a menace not only to the nation's body politic but also to its democratic soul. If allowed to proceed unimpeded, the pope and his minions, along with Tammany's bosses and supporters, would convert the nation into their personal fiefdom. Puck was not about to let that happen. In cartoons and editorials spanning two decades, the magazine blasted and often conjoined both Tammany and the papacy with invidious comparisons that left few readers in doubt as to their complicity. Although scholars have noted how the American letterpress also alluded to a connection between Tammany and the Catholic church, Puck's unparalleled comprehensive strategy to perpetuate and strengthen that connection has never been scrutinized. This essay redresses that oversight of an age when the public and its politicians reckoned very seriously the editorial artistry of great political cartoonists, especially those who drew for Puck.

scholarly journals Sobór chalcedoński. Kontekst historyczny, teologiczny, następstwa

Vox Patrum ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 137-179
Author(s):  
Józef Grzywaczewski
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Body ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Definition Of

The article presents the Council of Chalcedon; its theological and historical context and its consequences. The author starts with the theological context of this Council. In that time the question of relation between humanity and divinity in Christ was discussed. Apollinarius of Laodicea taught that in the person of Christ there were two elements: the Logos and the body. The Logos replaced the soul. He propagated the formula mia physis tou theou logou sesarkomene. Others theologians were not agree with his opinion. Generally, there were two theological schools which worked on this matter: school of Alexandria and of Antioch. In the first one, the Christ was seen especially as God who became man. In the second one, He was seen as the man who was God’s Son. With other words, in Alexandria the starting point of reflection was the Divinity of Christ. In Antioch the starting of reflection was His humanity. The author mentioned Eutyches whose ideas on Christology produced a lot of trouble. In such a context, the Council of Chalcedon was organized (451). It was the proposal of Emperor Marcjan. The Council, after having condemned Eutyches and Dioskur of Alexandria because of their position on theological matter, proclaimed a new definition of the catholic faith. The base of this definition was the Letter of Pope Leo the Great Ad Flavianum. The most important point of this definition was the statement that Divinity and humanity meet in Christ, and both form one person. Such a declaration seems to be clear, but it did not satisfy Greek theologians. They did not want to accept the formula two natures (duo physeis) in one person, because in their opinion it signifies a separation between the Divinity and the humanity of Christ. They preferred to speak about mia physis tou Theou Logou sesarkomene. Surely, by the term physis they did not understand nature, but a being. While saying mia physis they did not mean one nature, but one being. In their conception, Jesus Christ was a Being in which met Divinity and humanity. Many theologians were suspicious of the term person (prosopon); they supposed that it had a modalistic meaning. The main opinion of Modalists is: there is only One God who appears sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometime as Holy Spirit. There were also other reasons of contesting the definition of Chalcedon. It was known that that this definition was imposed by the Greek emperor, influenced by the Bishop of Rome (Pope). Many theologians, especially in monastic milieu, did not want to accept the intervention of the civil authorities in religious matter. They did not have a very good opinion about Latin theology. In the fifth century there were some anti-Hellenic tendencies in the eastern part of the Empire. Many Oriental theologians rejected the definition of Chalcedon because it was „a for­mula of Rom and Constantinople”. In such circumstances, a lot of Christians separated themselves from the Catholic Church, forming Monophysite Churches. Those who remained in unity with Rome and Constantinople, keeping the defini­tion of Chalcedon, were called Melchites. Another problem was the canon 28, which gave some privileges to the bishop see of Constantinople. Pope Leo the Great did not approve this canon. Anti-Hellenic tendencies were so strong that in the time of Islamic invasions the people of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt welcomed Arabic soldiers as liberators from Byzantine domination. It is to be said that Arabic authorities, after having taken power in a country, were friendly towards Monophysites and persecuted Melchites. So, the contestation of the definition of Chalcedon prepared the ground for the victory of Islam in the East. The article is ended by an observation of a French theologian Joseph Moingt: declaration that Divinity and humanity make union the person of Jesus Christ produced division not only in the Church, but also in the Roman Empire. This is one of great paradoxes in the history of Christianity.

Imperial Receptions

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-232
Author(s):  
Hunter H. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Silius Italicus ◽  
The Status ◽  
Latin Epic ◽  
Punic Wars

Chapter 6 explores the appropriation of late Republican and Augustan treatments of pestilence in Imperial literature. Seneca’s version of Oedipus’ tragedy turns to Latin epic, rather than Sophocles, to articulate conditions of pestilence in Thebes. This language reflects upon Oedipus’ traditional role as φαρμακός‎, both infected “carrier” and saviour to the civic body, clarifying how competing claims of individuality and collectivity have determined the pathology of earlier literary treatments of plague. By inscribing plague within a text that questions standards of good government, Seneca secures the role of contagion as a tool for examining the health of the body politic in Neronian Rome. The epics of Silius Italicus and Lucan also invoke the plagues of their predecessors in contexts of Roman civil discord, and use the plague’s power to enact the dissolution of individual identity as a way of indicting competition for political distinction. Lucan relies on the symptomology of his predecessors in his account of pestilence afflicting Pompey’s soldiers, but emphasizes the link between contagion and internal conflict by casting both the disease and the fervour for civil war as rabies. Silius, in the Punica, describes an outbreak of pestilence during the Punic Wars that brings about widespread destruction. But in answer to the status-leveling and dehumanizing effects characterizing preceding plague narratives, he depicts the Roman general Marcellus escaping the plague and recovering distinction or “exemplarity” in a way that does not threaten the health of the body politic.

scholarly journals Aberrations in the Body and in the Body Politic: The Eighteenth-Century Life of Benjamin Lay, Disabled Abolitionist

2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Smith Kogan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Physical Disability ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Disability History

<p class="DissBody">This article re-evaluates traditional interpretations and presentations of the (in)-famous eighteenth century Quaker abolitionist, Benjamin Lay, by arguing that his physical disability provided the foundation for his advocacy to eliminate slaveholding amongst his fellow Friends. The article will first establish the historical context Benjamin Lay's life and transatlantic travels to explain the roots of his abolitionist advocacy. Then, this article will analyze Lay's radical abolitionism both within the context of eighteenth-century Quaker antislavery and through the lens of disability history. This methodological approach will reveal that Lay displayed a clear awareness of his non-conforming body and the ways that its marginalizing effects empowered him to radically challenge the Quaker slaveholding establishment. The article will then analyze Lay's &lt;em&gt;All Slave-Keepers, Apostates&lt;/em&gt; and argue that Lay rhetorically constructed his own disability in this text through both a religious lens and through the emerging Enlightenment concept of human aberrance and hierarchy. Finally, the article will conclude by analyzing some of the earliest visual representations of Lay's strange body and contend that the context in which they were commissioned and circulated forged a positive connection between Lay's disability and his abolitionist accomplishments.</p>

“Plunged in the like peril”: The Power of Remembered and Dismembered Bodies in Robert Southwell’s Epistle unto His Father

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Gary M. Bouchard
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Rhetorical Appeals ◽  
Public Audience ◽  
Father And Son ◽  
The Catholic Church

The text of Epistle of Robert Southwell unto His Father is populated by bodies: the body politic that is the omnipresent Elizabethan state, the body of the Southwell family on behalf of whom Southwell claims to make his appeal, the body of the Catholic Church from which Richard Southwell is presently separated, and most significantly the body of Christ to which the young priest would have his father reunited. The detachment of father and son from these various bodies, and consequently from one another, is the reason for the letter’s existence as well as the foundation of its arguments and the source of its considerable drama. This essay argues that the artful persuasiveness of the Epistle lies in the simultaneity of its rhetorical appeals to both a private and public audience, appeals which are strengthened by the author’s awareness of the divided bodies he addresses, and his subsequent decision to deploy a provocative interplay between the actions of remembering and dismembering throughout his text.

Tonische Bewegung, Energie und ratio: Georg Ernst Stahls Agentenmodell des ,,Organismus" und die kategorielle Differenz zwischen Lebendigem und Unlebendigem

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Autonomous Agent ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Natural Agents ◽  
Organic Body ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Contraction And Relaxation

AbstractThis essay focuses on the structure of agency in Georg Ernst Stahl's model of organic order and the role that it plays for the difference between living and non-living beings in the discourses of medicine and natural history around 1700. Stahl calls the order of organic beings an "organism". He characterizes the "organism" through the notions of tonic movement, energy and ratio. The tonic movement is a mechanism of contraction and relaxation of organic units to direct fluids to certain parts of the body; the energy represents a certain, limited potential of the living body to act spontaneously and to react if it is irritated; and the ratio expresses the logic of a processual, directed order imposed on corporeal dispositions. This ratio inheres in natural agents. However, to establish his theory of agency, Stahl first analyzes the irregular blood movements that characterize diseases. The capacity of the organic body to change these movements and to heal itself in redirecting them, leads him to the assumption that such bodies can regulate their own order and that self-regulation requires an autonomous agent.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document