Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s
In this paper I situate Foucault’s governmentality analytics between his first lecture course (On the Will to Know, 1970-71) and his first course after his two “governmentality” lectures (On the Government of the Living, 1979-80). The lectures are interconnected by a shared interpretation of Sophocl...
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| Format: | Article |
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Sage
2016
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31573/ |
| _version_ | 1848794229348761600 |
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| author | Legg, Stephen |
| author_facet | Legg, Stephen |
| author_sort | Legg, Stephen |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | In this paper I situate Foucault’s governmentality analytics between his first lecture course (On the Will to Know, 1970-71) and his first course after his two “governmentality” lectures (On the Government of the Living, 1979-80). The lectures are interconnected by a shared interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex as well as by different but related obsessions with the production of truth: the earlier, with truth as fact; the latter, with truth as self-relation. The former analyses discourses of truth, law, inquiry and sovereignty in ancient Greece. The latter focuses on early Christian individual manifestations of truth (baptism, penance, and spiritual direction) forming a genealogy of confession and, Foucault suggests, of western subjectivity itself. This paper uses the analytical categories of governmentality, usually used to analyse regimes of government, to perform a comparative reading of the lecture courses, charting the continuities and ruptures in their various studies of episteme, techne, identities, ethos and problematisations. This suggests that the earlier lectures outline the birth of the sovereign-juridical compact that modern governmentalities would emerge through and against, while the later lectures use the term “governmentality” less, but enable the analysis of the conduct of conduct to progress to the ethical scale of self-formation. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:12:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-31573 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:12:52Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Sage |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-315732020-05-04T20:00:42Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31573/ Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s Legg, Stephen In this paper I situate Foucault’s governmentality analytics between his first lecture course (On the Will to Know, 1970-71) and his first course after his two “governmentality” lectures (On the Government of the Living, 1979-80). The lectures are interconnected by a shared interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex as well as by different but related obsessions with the production of truth: the earlier, with truth as fact; the latter, with truth as self-relation. The former analyses discourses of truth, law, inquiry and sovereignty in ancient Greece. The latter focuses on early Christian individual manifestations of truth (baptism, penance, and spiritual direction) forming a genealogy of confession and, Foucault suggests, of western subjectivity itself. This paper uses the analytical categories of governmentality, usually used to analyse regimes of government, to perform a comparative reading of the lecture courses, charting the continuities and ruptures in their various studies of episteme, techne, identities, ethos and problematisations. This suggests that the earlier lectures outline the birth of the sovereign-juridical compact that modern governmentalities would emerge through and against, while the later lectures use the term “governmentality” less, but enable the analysis of the conduct of conduct to progress to the ethical scale of self-formation. Sage 2016-10 Article PeerReviewed Legg, Stephen (2016) Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34 (5). pp. 858-876. ISSN 1472-3433 Foucault; Governmentality; Truth; Subjectivity; Christianity; Confession http://epd.sagepub.com/content/34/5/858 doi:10.1177/0263775816633474 doi:10.1177/0263775816633474 |
| spellingShingle | Foucault; Governmentality; Truth; Subjectivity; Christianity; Confession Legg, Stephen Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s |
| title | Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s |
| title_full | Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s |
| title_fullStr | Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s |
| title_full_unstemmed | Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s |
| title_short | Subject to truth: before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s |
| title_sort | subject to truth: before and after governmentality in foucault’s 1970s |
| topic | Foucault; Governmentality; Truth; Subjectivity; Christianity; Confession |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31573/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31573/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/31573/ |