Historicizing the Subject: Foucault after Liberalism and Eurocentrism

Historians transformed their discipline in the most important developments in the discipline of history in the 1980s and ‘90s by incorporating the work of Michel Foucault. But Foucauldian historians of those decades often ditched earlier critical traditions in history of the 1960s and 70s and embraced a liberalism that was in fact at odds with the work of Foucault. This was perhaps most striking in treatments of the subject, a category foundational to liberalism, but also, in an entirely different way, in the work of Foucault. Since the 1990s, liberalism has undergone serious challenges from theorists on the right, above all Carl Schmitt,, as well as theorists from the left -- first announced in a disarmingly humorous manner by Yugoslav theorist Slavoj Žižek. Our discipline has also made significant advances against Eurocentrism. Liberalism as ‘western’ now seems not only hopelessly local but also downright misleading. Considering the conflict of the liberal West vs. the communist East from the vantage point of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, for example, troubles easy oppositions of West/Rest that are essential to liberalism. We can now delve beyond a decontextualized, liberalized version of Foucault into the rich tradition out of which he emerged -- including thinkers like Marx, Mao and Althusser, Freud and Lacan. A number of significant non-liberal thinkers have also built on Foucault, including Giorgio Agamben and Antonio Negri. The talk will contrast ‘80s and 90s liberal Foucauldianism with Foucault’s own work. It will highlight the shift away from the liberal subject in on the most recent theoretical work of Joan Scott, especially in its engagement with Lacan. It will conclude with a discussion of some of the broader theoretical implications of this post-liberal, post-Eurocentric moment for our discipline.