Witchcraft, genealogy, Foucault

This paper is a genealogical reflection on both the historiography of European witchcraft and the dynamics of witchcraft trials. I argue that traditional scholarly assumptions about the 'unsophisticated' nature of early modern European mentalities result in inadequate representations of accused witches and of the social contexts and processes of the trials. Genealogy, by contrast, problematizes fundamental notions such as reason, order, power and progress in ways that not only provide a different range of effective tools for the analysis of belief in witchcraft, but also underline its crucial significance for social theory. In the final section, an analysis of a typical trial is undertaken employing key genealogical insights into confession, torture, truth, governmentality, power, pleasure and pain.     

福柯生存美学的身体维度

生存美学是福柯一贯的思想风格和生活原则,是其一生理论创造中最具诗性意义和建构意义的部分,代表着一种崭新的实践智慧和生活美学方向。对身体的美学凝思构成了福柯生存美学不可或缺的生命之维,在这里身体成为我们自身实现审美超越的基点,达到自身自由境界的出发点和归宿点。同时,身体也成为了在审美生存中美和日常生活的沟通者与承载者。     

Fertility treatment and organizational discourses of the non-reproductive female body

This paper contributes to debates on the intersections between organizations, the body, and reproduction by exploring how the non-reproductive female body is discursively (re)constructed by organizations which provide fertility treatment, such as private clinics and fertility magazines. Organization studies has neglected the non-reproductive body, despite a fair amount of research on its reproductive counterpart, especially pregnant and maternal bodies. Equally, these discussions privilege the employment relationship – for example, how women are enjoined to manage their bodies at work – whereas we concentrate on the marketplace, or the field of fertility treatment, and the organizations therein. These organizations, while focused on reproducing bodies, also influence, compound, and challenge notions of the bodies they are involved with. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis of texts produced by UK fertility organizations, we present three discourses of the non-reproductive female body that (re)generate subject positions where the absence of reproduction is a medical condition, an emotionally distressing experience, and something that needs to be cared for. Our argument suggests how the texts can operate as a form of Foucauldian governmental biopower, emphasizing how they hail the infertile female subject.