Foucault’s later writings continue his analyses of subject-formation but now with a view to foregrounding an active subject capable of self-transformation via ascetical and other self-imposed disciplinary practices. In my essay, I engage Foucault’s studies of ancient Greco-Roman and Christian technologies of the self with a two-fold purpose in view. First, I bring to the fore additional continuities either downplayed or overlooked by Foucault’s analysis between Greco-Roman transformative practices including self-writing, correspondence, and the hupomnemata and Christian ascetical and epistolary practices. (...) Second, I add exegetical support to recent arguments denying Foucault’s advocacy for the death of the subject per se. In fact, my analyses show that Foucault’s ethico-aesthetic turn and its corresponding concern with self-transformation and self-(re)constitution via ascetical practices assumes a subject with rational and volitional capacities. Without these capacities, the art of living Foucault describes is not possible. (shrink)

This article argues that commercial weight-loss organizations appropriate and debase the askeses—practices of care of the self—that Michel Foucault theorized, increasing members’ capacities at the same time as they encourage participation in ever-tightening webs of power. Weight Watchers, for example, claims to promote self-knowledge, cultivate new capacities and pleasures, foster self-care in face of gendered exploitation, and encourage wisdom and flexibility. The hupomnemata of these organizations thus use asketic language to conceal their implication in normalization.

: This article argues that commercial weight-loss organizations appropriate and debase the askeses—practices of care of the self—that Michel Foucault theorized, increasing members' capacities at the same time as they encourage participation in ever-tightening webs of power. Weight Watchers, for example, claims to promote self-knowledge, cultivate new capacities and pleasures, foster self-care in face of gendered exploitation, and encourage wisdom and flexibility. The hupomnemata of these organizations thus use asketic language to conceal their implication in normalization.

THE ETHOPOIETIC FUNCTION OF WRITING: HOW TO WRITE TO MASTER ONE’S OWN IDENTITY. ON THE BASIS OF THE LATE WORKS BY MICHEL FOUCAULT The ethopoietic function of writing is a term used to describe the possibility launched by the process of writing to transform theoretical truths into ethos — the rule that governs our vita activa. In his writings Foucault presents the concise, yet detailed, methods of governing and mastering the Self. Seneca’s hupomnēmata are an example of how to (...) integrate theoretical knowledge into the very “body” of the Self. Introducing words into the virtual space between present consciousness and future unconsciousness increases the distance between “I” and death; hence, Foucault concludes that “we write so as not to die.” “Essential affinity between death, endless striving and the selfrepresentation of language” is, in this sense, the condition for the creation of an identity. I would like to present the ways in which Foucault assimilates all these paths to make the aesthetics and ethics of our existence coherent and complete. (shrink)