Tag Archives: Foucault

Columns

The US War Machine and Culture of War

From Empire to Network Power

Michael A. Peters

The concept of Empire is dedicated to the idea of peace. (Hardt & Negri, 2004) A structuralist analysis of the US permanent war economy follows the governmentality of the market as revealed by mainstream economics to make three underlying assumptions: (i) peace is a normal state of affairs that characterises societies that are both developed […]

Michael A. Peters

Michael A. Peters (FRSNZ, FHSNZ, FPESA) is a globally recognised scholar whose interdisciplinary work spans philosophy of education, political economy and ecological civilisation. He holds the distinction of Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U.S.A.), Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University (P.R. China), and Research Associate in the Philosophy Program at Waikato University (New Zealand).

Previously, he served as Distinguished Professor of Education at Beijing Normal University (2018–2024) and held prestigious appointments including Personal Chair at the University of Auckland (2000), Research Chair at the University of Glasgow (2000–2006), Excellence Hire Professor at the University of Illinois (2005–2011), and Professor of Education at the University of Waikato (2011–2018).

A prolific author, Professor Peters has written over 120 books and 500 articles, shaping discourse in educational theory, philosophy, and critical policy studies. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Educational Philosophy and Theory for 25 years and founded multiple international journals, cementing his role as a leader in academic publishing.

His contributions have been honoured with fellowships in the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ, 2008) and the Humanities Society of New Zealand (FHSNZ, 2006), alongside honorary doctorates from State University of New York (SUNY, 2012) and the University of Aalborg (2015).

His latest research explores post-apocalyptic philosophy and ecological futures, including the forthcoming Civilisational Collapse and the Philosophy of Post-Apocalyptic Survival (Peter Lang, 2025). He is currently editing the Handbook of Ecological Civilization (Springer, 2025), advancing critical dialogues on sustainability and global transformation.

For more on his work, visit: https://michaeladrianpeters.com/

Columns

The Hermeneutics of the (Bio)Subject

Truth and Pedagogy and an Ecological Model of Subjectivity

Michael A. Peters

We will call ‘philosophy’ the form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth and which attempts to determine the conditions and limits of the subject’s access to the truth. If we call this ‘philosophy,’ then I think we could call ‘spirituality’ the search, practice, and […]

Full Citation Information:
Peters, M. A. (2022). The Hermeneutics of the (Bio)Subject: Truth and Pedagogy and an Ecological Model of Subjectivity. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-hermeneutics-of-the-biosubject/

Michael A. Peters

Michael A. Peters (FRSNZ, FHSNZ, FPESA) is a globally recognised scholar whose interdisciplinary work spans philosophy of education, political economy and ecological civilisation. He holds the distinction of Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U.S.A.), Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University (P.R. China), and Research Associate in the Philosophy Program at Waikato University (New Zealand).

Previously, he served as Distinguished Professor of Education at Beijing Normal University (2018–2024) and held prestigious appointments including Personal Chair at the University of Auckland (2000), Research Chair at the University of Glasgow (2000–2006), Excellence Hire Professor at the University of Illinois (2005–2011), and Professor of Education at the University of Waikato (2011–2018).

A prolific author, Professor Peters has written over 120 books and 500 articles, shaping discourse in educational theory, philosophy, and critical policy studies. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Educational Philosophy and Theory for 25 years and founded multiple international journals, cementing his role as a leader in academic publishing.

His contributions have been honoured with fellowships in the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ, 2008) and the Humanities Society of New Zealand (FHSNZ, 2006), alongside honorary doctorates from State University of New York (SUNY, 2012) and the University of Aalborg (2015).

His latest research explores post-apocalyptic philosophy and ecological futures, including the forthcoming Civilisational Collapse and the Philosophy of Post-Apocalyptic Survival (Peter Lang, 2025). He is currently editing the Handbook of Ecological Civilization (Springer, 2025), advancing critical dialogues on sustainability and global transformation.

For more on his work, visit: https://michaeladrianpeters.com/

EPAT

Foucault, Biopolitics and the Critique of State Reason

Alex Means

The concept of biopolitics was first outlined by Michel Foucault in his lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s in order to name and analyse emergent logics of power in the 18th and 19th centuries. According to Foucault, biopolitics refers to the processes by which human life, at the level of the population, emerged […]

Full Citation Information:
Means, A. (2022). Foucault, Biopolitics and the Critique of State Reason. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/epat/foucault-biopolitics-and-the-critique-of-state-reason-2/

Alex Means

Alex Means is Graduate Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Educational Foundations, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His work examines education in relation to political, economic, cultural, technological, and social change. His most recent book is Learning to Save the Future: Rethinking Education and Work in an Age of Digital Capitalism (Routledge 2018). Alex is co-host with Amy Sojot for the PESA Agora Podcast series,  Collective Intellectualities.

Columns

Rorty, Trust and Education

Bruce Haynes

Richard Rorty, in the papers presented in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991), set out some objections to the dominant Anglo-American philosophical focus on objectivity, transcendence and truth, and the supposed alternatives, relativism and scepticism. He lauded a general Franco-German trend away from a realist position but saw as problematic some after-effects of embracing Marxism by […]

Bruce Haynes

Bruce Haynes, FPESA, FPE, is retired after 34 years in teacher education and 50 years of PESA membership. He is founding member, a past president and fellow of PESA, and been always been active member. PESA honours him and Felicity by holding a named lecture at conference. His 2009 papers, in the Educational Philosophy and Theory special issue, Celebration of PESA 40 years, include Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia: The official record, and PESA and I: A long engagement, tell us a lot more about his contribution to PESA.

Columns

Nomadland: Cinema and Foucault’s Courage of Truth

Marla Morris

Michel Foucault’s The Courage of Truth – his series of lectures given at the College of France between 1983 and 1984 – concerns Plato’s use of the notion of parrhesia, or the necessity of truth-telling. Truth-telling is not only a philosophic idea but also a way of life, a “mode of life” (p. 146). Courage in […]

Full Citation Information:
Morris, M. (2021). Nomadland: Cinema and Foucault’s Courage of Truth. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/nomadland-cinema-and-foucaults-courage-of-truth/

Marla Morris

Marla is Professor of Curriculum, Foundations & Reading, in the College of Education, Statesboro Campus, Georgia Southern University, GA, USA. She studied philosophy at Tulane University, religious studies at Loyola University, New Orleans and Education at Louisiana State University. She has PhDs from Louisiana State University (Education) and the European Graduate School (Philosophy). Her main interests are postmodern philosophy, psychoanalysis, curriculum studies and systematic theology. She has published papers on Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Michel Serres, Simone de Beauvoir,  drawing extensively on the work of Gaston Bachelard and Donna Haraway. Marla has also worked in Holocaust studies, trauma studies, medical humanities and chaplaincy.