Foucault and the Politics of Resistance in Brazil

225 Pages·0.855 MB·English

by  Bernard Harcourt

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Bernard E. Harcourt
PREFACE
FOUCAULT IN BRAZIL
Carceral Notebooks XIII
Michel Foucault’s 1973 Rio lectures, Truth and Juridical
Form, delivered at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de
Janeiro in Brazil, are among the most significant political theo-
retic contributions that Foucault made in his lifetime. The Rio
lectures crystalized the turn in Foucault’s thought toward one
of his most influential theories: knowledge/power, and, eventu-
ally, regimes of truth. The Rio lectures demonstrate the illusion
of pristine knowledge—of objective, neutral knowledge pur-
portedly free of power or politics—and urged us, in the most
compelling terms, following Nietzsche, to “liquidate” that
myth. The lectures underscored the primacy of law and juridical
form in the production of truth—and, more broadly, the pri-
mary role of law in his overarching research project. Together
with his 1981 Louvain lectures, Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling:
The Function of Avowal in Justice, the Rio lectures provide a full
historical arc—from the ancients to the 1970s—to critique the
existing social and political order, and the ways in which we
ourselves participate in the construction of that social order.
I had always been curious about what it must have been
like for Foucault to travel to Rio and live there under a military
dictatorship. How did it affect his thinking? How did his intel-
lectual trajectory at the time shape his understanding of the
Foucault in Brazil
political situation in Brazil, and through it, in France? Until
now, those key questions could only be asked. It was when I
read Marcelo Hoffman’s brilliant review essay of Heliana de
Barros Conde Rodrigues’s book Ensaios sobre Michel Foucault
no Brasil: Presença, efeitos, ressonâncias (Michel Foucault in
Brazil: Presence, Effects, Resonances) in the journal Theory,
Culture & Society, that I realized how important the answers
might be. I began to see the significance of Foucault’s experi-
ence in Brazil to his intellectual trajectory. I immediately
reached out to Marcelo Hoffman to curate a volume on
Foucault in Brazil. This outstanding collection is the product.
I am deeply indebted to Marcelo Hoffman.
In this Volume XIII of the Carceral Notebooks, Marcelo
Hoffman, a brilliant political theorist and the author of
Foucault and Power: The Influence of Political Engagement on
Theories of Power (Bloomsbury Academic 2014) and Militant
Acts: The Role of Investigations in Radical Political Struggles
(State University of New York Press 2019), has brought
together the leading thinkers in Brazil on Foucault and his
interactions with the intellectuals and the public sphere in
Brazil. Their contributions offer insights into the ways in which
Foucault’s visits to Brazil and exchanges while there both influ-
enced and were shaped by his intellectual trajectory at the time,
as well as offering reflections on how Foucault’s writings and
praxis can infuse political resistance in Brazil today. With the
forthcoming publication of Foucault’s first set of lectures from
1965 delivered at the University of São Paulo in Brazil on the
topic of his then-recently published book, The Order of Things:
An Archeology of the Human Sciences, in the new collection of
Cours et travaux de Michel Foucault avant le Collège de France
Bernard E. Harcourt
(Gallimard/Seuil; English edition by Columbia University
Press), this volume could not be more timely.
Foucault ultimately broke silence. While in Brazil during
his fourth trip in 1975, Foucault suspended his lectures in pro-
test of the Brazilian dictatorship. He joined in student protests,
in late October 1975, and delivered a short manifesto declaring
that “A university that is not fully free is nothing more than a
business of servility. You can’t teach under boot heels; you
can’t speak in the face of the walls of prisons; you can’t study
when arms threaten.” Those words, given the military dictator-
ship, displayed a courage of truth. Two years earlier, in the
discussion and debate that followed Truth and Juridical Form,
Foucault recognized well that “To speak is to exercise a power,
to speak is to risk your power, it is to risk succeeding or losing
everything.”
This volume is published in honor of that courage to break
silence and to speak out, with the hope that it will enrich and
encourage resistance and praxis both here in the United States
and in Brazil, and in countries across the globe that are
engaged in similar struggles against increasingly autocratic
political leadership.
New York City
April 15, 2019
DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this volume and all of the previous
Carceral Notebooks to Scott Kelly. The production of this par-
ticular Volume XIII was brutally interrupted by Scott’s sudden
death. I cannot imagine how the Carceral Notebooks will con-
tinue without Scott.
Scott Kelly was a brother to me, and a source of great
inspiration and friendship. It was Scott who made possible and
realized my idea to publish these Carceral Notebooks. Scott
enlisted his colleagues at his publishing company, PubData, to
help with the typesetting and printing, web design and distribu-
tion, and Scott turned a dream into a reality.
Scott was an extraordinarily generous person—intellectu-
ally and emotionally. He never drew attention to himself, but
was always working, behind the scenes, to ensure the well being
of his family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. He was always
thinking something up, realizing a project, fixing something,
building something. He always had a new idea to make things
better. And in the process, he built so much. Quietly, unassum-
ingly, he made it possible for us to realize our aspirations.
It was about 15 years ago that I first spoke to Scott about
this publishing project, and he immediately and so generously
made it come true. “That’s doable.” “Let’s make it happen.”
“Here’s how.” Scott was brilliant and engaged the project of the
Carceral Notebooks both intellectually and practically. He
enlisted Karen Rolnick, Lynne Goldin, and Nick Papaseraphim
to produce the book, and our other brother, Alcides Roverano,
to print the volumes. He guided me through all its aspects—
legal, including incorporation, and practical, including board
meetings and minutes. At every juncture, he had new ideas and
made them realities. He got an ISBN number. He found the
right paper weight and quality. He sampled different inks, espe-
cially the inside red ink. He turned a few volumes into e-Books,
then put them on Amazon. Scott had the most incredible ability
to make things happen. Scott created. Scott accomplished. And
in the process, so generously, Scott helped us live to our fullest.
I will close with a poem by the Roman poet, Gaius
Catullus, “A Brother’s Farewell,” with some edits and judicious
adaptations since both Scott and I were born in New York City
and grew up a few blocks apart:
From neighborhoods across New York City, from its
streets and its avenues,
we have come, brother, father, uncle, partner,
colleague, and friend,
to these melancholy rites,
to show this final honor to you, Scott,
and to speak to your silent soul now,
since fate has taken you, yes you, from us all.
Oh Scott, ripped away from us so cruelly,
now at least take these last offerings,
blessed by the tradition of our parents and our
children.
Accept, in this way, what a friend’s tears drown,
and for eternity, Scott, “Hail and Farewell.”
Farewell, Scott.
We will miss you. We admire you.
We thank you.
New York City
April 15, 2019
Marcelo Hoffman
INTRODUCTION
Political events often catch up with us, interrupting the flow
of our work and opening up previously unimaginable horizons of
thought, as Michel Foucault knew so well. The contours of the
political present in Brazil have compelled me to modify my origi-
nal plans for this editorial introduction. I am writing these intro-
ductory words to the thirteenth volume of the Carceral Notebooks
in a state of profound grief. Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential
election in Brazil yesterday. A far-right politician and former mili-
tary captain known for his deeply hostile statements toward gays,
Afro-Brazilians, women, and indigenous people, Bolsonaro has
capitalized on a popular anger over corruption scandals, an
imploding economy, and a generalized insecurity. His solution to
these problems resides in Brazil’s recent past. Bolsonaro openly
defends the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to
1985 and describes his overall objective as a return to what Brazil
was like during that period.1 He finds inspiration in a regime that
Foucault forcefully denounced for its severe political repression.
Bolsonaro’s victory thus makes the theme “Foucault and the
Politics of Resistance in Brazil” even more resonant. The explora-
tion of this theme enables us to elucidate what lessons practices of
resistance from the period of the dictatorship in Brazil might bear
for struggles there (and elsewhere) in our present.
This volume brings together the contributions of scholars
throughout Brazil to explore the intellectual and political impor-
tance of Foucault’s visits to Brazil in 1965, 1973, 1974, 1975,
and 1976. During these visits, Foucault synthesized and advanced
1
Introduction
his research in lectures and talks on an astoundingly wide range
of topics, from juridical practices, to social medicine, to sexual-
ity. He sought to clarify his unconventional perspectives in
interviews with the mainstream and alternative press. Faced
with the growing political repression of students, professors,
and journalists, Foucault also engaged in open opposition to
the military dictatorship. The point of the essays in this volume
is not simply to account for Foucault’s activities in another
national geographical space (alongside the more commonly
recognized spaces of Tunisia, Iran, and the United States). The
essays in this volume situate his contributions in Brazil within a
series of theoretical, historical, and political contexts to reflect
on the politics of resistance in Brazil in the past and present.
Some of the essays fill in the historical details of Foucault’s
visits to Brazil to expand our understandings of his concepts,
such as political spirituality and militancy. Others bring con-
cepts from Foucault’s toolbox, such as self-writing, to bear on
practices of resistance in the Brazilian present. Still others focus
on the effects of his encounters in Brazil for contemporary
practices of resistance there. What emerges collectively from
the essays is the importance of Brazil as a space of conceptual
and political innovation for Foucault and the significance of
Foucault for debates about theory and politics in Brazil.
The initiative for this volume of the Carceral Notebooks
sprang from the space opened up by the groundbreaking
research of Heliana de Barros Conde Rodrigues into the little-
known theme of Foucault in Brazil.2 Bernard E. Harcourt was
generous enough to invite me to put together this volume after
reading my review of Conde’s book in March 2017.3 Most of
the essays in the volume were initially presented at a workshop
2
Marcelo Hoffman
on “Foucault and the Politics of Resistance in Brazil” at the
Columbia Global Center in Rio de Janeiro in May 2018. The
workshop was sponsored by the Columbia Center for
Contemporary Critical Thought (CCCCT). I want to thank the
authors for their contributions. I also want to thank Lynne F.
Goldin and Nick Papaseraphim for their excellent work on the
production of the volume.

NOTES
1 “Bolsonaro diz que objetivo é fazer o Brasil semelhante ‘ao que tinhamos
há 40, 50 anos,’” O Globo, October 15, 2018, https://oglobo.globo.
com/brasil/bolsonaro-diz-que-objetivo-fazer-brasil-semelhante-ao-que-
tinhamos-ha-40-50-anos-23158680.
2 Heliana de Barros Conde Rodrigues, Ensaios sobre Michel Foucault no
Brasil: Presença, efeitos, ressonâncias (Rio de Janeiro: Lamparina, 2016).
3 Marcelo Hoffman, “In the Shadow of Dictatorship: Foucault in Brazil,”
review of Ensaios sobre Michel Foucault no Brasil: Presença, efeitos, ressonân-
cias, by Heliana de Barros Conde Rodrigues, Theory, Culture & Society,
March 22, 2017, https://www.theoryculturesociety.org/review-shadow-
dictatorship-foucault-brazil/.
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