The Will to Strategy: Foucault’s Interregnum, 1976–1979

We can detect two great or overarching thematics in Foucault’s work: through the publication of the first volume of the History of Sexuality a general interest in the modes of discipline according to which individuals are formed in accordance with the social order; and from 1980 onwards, a newly practical-political orientation tasked with an interventionist mandate—the practice of ‘truth-telling’, ‘political spirituality’, and an ethics of the ‘care of the self’, a self-transformation through revolution. But in between these periods and problematics lies a peculiar moment between 1976 and 1979. During this moment, Foucault will publish no major works to rival his extraordinary output of the late 60s-early 70s. It is a period characterized by a turn in thought towards political economy, but also to a certain Marx. The relationship of Foucault to Marx (and to Marxism) is unsettled, and in some ways, cannot be settled. It is an open problematic for us. This interregnum entails two theoretical developments of note: first, intense forms of intervention around Marx’s thought outside France (specifically in Brazil, Italy, Japan, and Iran). Second, a wager on new, affirmative possibilities of politics not solely located within the earlier genealogical form of inquiry.