The South Atlantic Quarterly 111!3, Summer 2012"#$ 10.1215/00382876-1596245%© 2012 Duke University Press

Pleasure—nobody knows what it is!—Michel Foucault, “On the Genealogy of Ethics”

The question of pleasure, so central to Michel Foucault’s work on power relations, has been skirted by those who have developed his incho-ate remarks on biopower for an understanding of our contemporary political situation. There is plenty of pain and injustice but very little pleasure in the critiques elaborated by philoso-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, at least in the Anglo- American imagination, pre-cisely with pleasure. One way of framing the question that guides this essay would be to won-der why the Italians seem to have forgotten about the pleasurable side o! life (the pleasures of bíos as well as of zo!). Is it really the case that pleasure—whatever we take it to be—remains negligible in biopolitics? Why does pleasure appear as super-" cial or politically unserious by comparison with other issues? After all, one of Foucault’s major insights was that pleasure is not antithetical to power but inextricable from it. The “perpetual spirals of power and pleasure” that he diagrams in La volonté de savoir make not only resistance

Tim Dean

The Biopolitics of Pleasure

phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-pleasure in the critiques elaborated by philoso-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo

skirted by those who have developed his incho-ate remarks on biopower for an understanding of our contemporary political situation. There is plenty of pain and injustice but very little pleasure in the critiques elaborated by philoso-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated,

is plenty of pain and injustice but very little pleasure in the critiques elaborated by philoso-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-

at least in the Anglo- American imagination, pre-at least in the Anglo- American imagination, pre-at least in the Anglo- American imagination, pre-at least in the Anglo- American imagination, pre-Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, at least in the Anglo- American imagination, pre-Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo Virno—whose nationality tends to be associated, ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-ben, Roberto Esposito, Antonio Negri, and Paolo phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-phers—I’m thinking primarily of Giorgio Agam-

478%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

but also pleasure an indispensable part of the mechanism of power’s opera-tions.# I want to begin by suggesting that biopolitical theory has neglected the problematic of pleasure not because it is super" cial or straightforward but, on the contrary, because it is so di$ cult. Foucault was the " rst to admit this di$ culty. In an interview from 1982, conducted while he was completing work on the later volumes of The History of Sexuality, he comments: “I think that pleasure is a very dif-" cult behavior. It’s not as simple as that to enjoy one’s self. [Laughs] And I must say that’s my dream. I would like and I hope I’ll die of an overdose of pleasure of any kind. [Laughs] Because I think it’s really di$ cult, and I always have the feeling that I do not feel the pleasure, the complete total pleasure, and, for me, it’s related to death.”% What one might have imagined as facile and unproblematic—our experience of pleasure—turns out to be a source of considerable di$ culty. Yet in order to grasp these sentences, we must resist the temptation to read them biographically. The relevance o! his remarks exceeds Foucault’s own psychology; indeed, by inferring that pleasure transports us beyond the subject of pleasure, they exceed any psychology (this may be why Foucault is laughing). One of the uses of plea-sure—albeit not one discussed in his book of that title—would be to serve the cause of self- extinction, understood less as a fatality than as an escape from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography. It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin-ciple. The slightly odd locution (wouldn’t pleasure be better conceived as one possible outcome o! behavior?) comports with the emphasis o! his work on practices over and against essences, representations, or identities. Yet the di$ culty of pleasure, as Foucault characterizes it in this interview, directly contrasts with what makes pleasurable behavior di$ cult in The Use of Pleasure. If, in those texts o! late antiquity that Foucault studied for the second volume of The History of Sexuality, the challenge was to master one’s uses of aphrodisia by way of various techniques of moderation, in this interview the challenge appears opposite—namely, to intensify pleasure to the point where it overwhelms the self.' The distinction is not between mastering pleasure or being mastered by it, but rather between di& erent ways of cultivating pleasure, neither of which is anywhere near as easy as enjoying a meal or getting laid. Since Foucault is not talking here about sexual pleasure—or, indeed, about genital pleasure as a model for bodily pleasure—the distinction between moderating and intensifying pleasure is

from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes the cause of self- extinction, understood less as a fatality than as an escape from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.

o! his remarks exceeds Foucault’s own psychology; indeed, by inferring that pleasure transports us beyond the subject of pleasure, they exceed any psychology (this may be why Foucault is laughing). One of the uses of plea-sure—albeit not one discussed in his book of that title—would be to serve the cause of self- extinction, understood less as a fatality than as an escape from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography. It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin-

sure—albeit not one discussed in his book of that title—would be to serve the cause of self- extinction, understood less as a fatality than as an escape from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes

cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin-cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin-cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin-cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-cault refers to pleasure as a “behavior” rather than as an a& ect or a prin- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou- It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography. It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography. It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography. It is worth noting that, in this interview conducted in English, Fou-us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes us beyond the coordinates o! individual psychology or biography.from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes the cause of self- extinction, understood less as a fatality than as an escape from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes the cause of self- extinction, understood less as a fatality than as an escape from the prison house o! identity. Going beyond identity necessarily takes

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%479

complicated by a notion of pleasure that exceeds sexual satisfaction. When, a few moments later in the interview, he observes that “[a] pleasure must be something incredibly intense,” Foucault gestures toward a practice of pleasure whose di$ culty lies in its resistance to satisfaction. This is the di$ -culty not of what hankers after satisfaction without achieving it but of what pushes beyond the limit that satisfaction typically designates. It may seem as though, in abjuring the temptation to psychologize, we have ventured onto psychoanalytic territory. Certainly it would be easy to describe this pleasure- beyond- satisfaction in terms of the death drive; Foucault’s interview comment that “for me, it’s related to death” seems to point in that direction too. Yet I think it’s worth tarrying for a while outside a psychoanalytic orbit in order to follow where Foucault’s line of thinking about pleasure leads. Invoking the death drive risks resolving the problem-atic of pleasure prematurely. One of the real limitations of queer theory is that, although inspired by the " rst volume of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, it has tended to reduce the notion of “bodies and pleasures” to questions of speci" cally sexual pleasure, on one hand, or the death drive, on the other.( Far from a stable category in Foucault’s thought, pleasure nevertheless remains irreducible to the terms of either “sex” or “drive.” The burden of La volonté de savoir was that sex is not the solution—even if pleasure might be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power with the claims o! bodies, pleasures, and knowledges, in their multiplicity and their possibilities of resistance. The rallying point for the counterattack against the deployment of sexuality ought not to be sex- desire but bodies and pleasures.”) The familiarity of Foucault’s argument here should not obscure how counterintuitive it actually is, since his titrating of pleasure from the sex- desire nexus involves a precarious segregation between our understanding of pleasure and our experiences of sex. He is insisting that we relinquish fucking and orgasm as paradigms for pleasure. Or, as he puts it in another late interview, “The idea that bodily pleasure should always come from sexual pleasure as the root of all our possible pleasure—I think that’s some-thing quite wrong.”* Reducing bodily pleasure to sexual pleasure serves to corral it within a scientia sexualis, where it once again becomes an index of truth and hence a means of regulation. For Foucault the appeal of plea-sure is that, insofar as it lacks the psychological depth attributed to desire,

be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and was that sex is not the solution—even if pleasure might

be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency

it has tended to reduce the notion of “bodies and pleasures” to questions of speci" cally sexual pleasure, on one hand, or the death drive, on the other.Far from a stable category in Foucault’s thought, pleasure nevertheless remains irreducible to the terms of either “sex” or “drive.” The burden of

was that sex is not the solution—even if pleasure might be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power

remains irreducible to the terms of either “sex” or “drive.” The burden of was that sex is not the solution—even if pleasure might

be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and

sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-sal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grip of power of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical rever-pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and pleasures” with which Foucault concludes his polemic: “It is the agency be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and

was that sex is not the solution—even if pleasure might be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and

was that sex is not the solution—even if pleasure might be. Hence the well- known opposition between “sex- desire” and “bodies and

480%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

pleasure malfunctions as a reliable sign of subjective truth and thus inter-rupts the smooth deployment of regulatory power. Desexualizing pleasure defamiliarizes it. This is the upside, politically speaking, to the epistemo-logically dismaying implication of the sentence I’ve taken as this paper’s epigraph (“pleasure—nobody knows what it is!”), in which Foucault sug-gests that the modern, Western emphasis on deciphering desire has pro-duced an ignorance about pleasure.+ The point would not be to remedy this ignorance by means of a science of pleasure but rather to leverage it against established regimes of power- knowledge. Pleasure’s opacity repre-sents both a problem and, from a di& erent vantage, a tactical solution. Of course, the notion of a political solution is one of the persistent chi-meras that Foucault’s redescription of power aimed to displace (much to the annoyance of readers seeking blueprints for action). Insofar as pleasure countermands the claims o! identity, Foucault is justi" ed in di& erentiating it from sex. Yet if pleasure resists knowledge, it does not thereby unequivo-cally resist power. On the contrary, Foucault’s critique of the repressive hypothesis argues that nineteenth- century power relations, far from func-tioning simply to negate and circumscribe pleasure, in fact worked in con-cert with it, such that power and pleasure ampli" ed each other. “There was undoubtedly an increase in e& ectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of power and a gain of pleasure.”, In order to register the import of what he is describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (béné" ce de plaisir) accrues not only to those who exercise power but also to those who are its targets. Here is the crucial passage:

The pleasure that comes of exercising a power that questions, monitors, watches, spies, searches out, palpates, brings to light; and on the other hand, the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power, - ee from it, fool it, or travesty it. The power that lets itsel! be invaded by the pleasure it is pursuing; and opposite it, power asserting itsel! in the pleasure of show-ing o& , scandalizing, or resisting. Capture and seduction, confrontation and mutual reinforcement: parents and children, adults and adolescents, edu-cator and students, doctors and patients, the psychiatrist with his hysteric and his perverts, all have played this game continually since the nineteenth century. These attractions, these evasions, these circular incitements have traced around bodies and sexes, not boundaries not to be crossed, but per-petual spirals of power and pleasure..

controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of undoubtedly an increase in e& ectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of power and a gain of pleasure.”, In order to register the import of what he is power and a gain of pleasure.”

cally resist power. On the contrary, Foucault’s critique of the repressive hypothesis argues that nineteenth- century power relations, far from func-tioning simply to negate and circumscribe pleasure, in fact worked in con-cert with it, such that power and pleasure ampli" ed each other. “There was undoubtedly an increase in e& ectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of power and a gain of pleasure.” In order to register the import of what he is describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (

cert with it, such that power and pleasure ampli" ed each other. “There was undoubtedly an increase in e& ectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of

ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-ciate how “a gain of pleasure” (describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-

In order to register the import of what he is describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-

In order to register the import of what he is describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-

In order to register the import of what he is describing—as well as its implications for biopolitics—we need to appre-

In order to register the import of what he is In order to register the import of what he is In order to register the import of what he is In order to register the import of what he is In order to register the import of what he is controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of

In order to register the import of what he is controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of

In order to register the import of what he is controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of undoubtedly an increase in e& ectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of undoubtedly an increase in e& ectiveness and an extension of the domain controlled,” he says of this new form of power, “but also a sensualization of

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%481

In this description of what might be called an erotics of discipline, we glimpse the model of power relations advanced one year earlier, in Disci-pline and Punish, already morphing into something else. While it is not hard to imagine how pleasure accompanies both the exercise of power and the resistance to that exercise, the prospect of a “power that lets itsel! be invaded by the pleasure it is pursuing” is more counterintuitive. If Foucault revealed power as operative even where we least expect it (“power is every-where”), then he suggested how opportunities for pleasure emerge unex-pectedly too. The mobility and di& usion of modern power relations do not circumscribe but instead proliferate pleasures. It is not clear that this aspect of Foucault’s argument has been fully grasped. We have registered the di& usion of power beyond heads of state and institutions, and we have imagined possibilities for resistance to new forms of power in the contemporary world. But we have found it much harder to see proliferating possibilities for pleasure—or to imagine those pleasures as valid. I think that Foucault means it when he refers to “per-petual spirals of power and pleasure,” even if what he means remains opaque. It is to our detriment that we remain skeptical about pleasures that we regard as contaminated by power, as i! it were impossible to dis-tinguish such pleasures from exploitation or abuse. Foucault is suggesting that there are no pleasures that are not contaminated by power—and there-fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations. When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea-sure in the hierarchical relationships that Foucault invokes—between par-ents and children, teachers and students, doctors and patients, psychia-trists and hysterics—we inevitably worry about pleasure being obtained at the less powerful person’s expense. We think that pleasure is a zero- sum game and that it must have a victim. The structure of the spiral, in which power and pleasure are interwoven, is meant to challenge this assumption of a zero- sum game. Yet if pleasure appears as exploitative or illegitimate, then it hardly seems like something we should cultivate or embrace. From this vantage, pleasure looks pathological and deserves to be called by a dif-ferent, less positive name. Here we witness a version of the conjuring trick that makes pleasure vanish, in this case by unmasking it as immoral or unethical. The conviction that pleasure tends to be taken at the expense of society’s less powerful members has animated various feminist critiques, for example, which demystify pleasure as a prerogative of speci" cally mas-culine privilege. This position is stated most baldly by Laura Mulvey when,

that there are no pleasures that are tinguish such pleasures from exploitation or abuse. Foucault is suggesting

contaminated by power—and there-fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there

pleasures as valid. I think that Foucault means it when he refers to “per-petual spirals of power and pleasure,” even if what he means remains opaque. It is to our detriment that we remain skeptical about pleasures that we regard as contaminated by power, as i! it were impossible to dis-tinguish such pleasures from exploitation or abuse. Foucault is suggesting that there are no pleasures that are not contaminated by power—and there-fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations. When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea-

that we regard as contaminated by power, as i! it were impossible to dis-tinguish such pleasures from exploitation or abuse. Foucault is suggesting

contaminated by power—and there-

When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea- When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea- When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea- When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea-were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations. When we contemplate the prospect of not just power but also plea-were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there were some pure pleasure exterior to and independent of power relations.fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there

contaminated by power—and there-fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there

contaminated by power—and there-fore that we’re mistaken to think in terms of contamination, as if there

contaminated by power—and there- contaminated by power—and there- contaminated by power—and there- contaminated by power—and there- contaminated by power—and there-tinguish such pleasures from exploitation or abuse. Foucault is suggesting

contaminated by power—and there-tinguish such pleasures from exploitation or abuse. Foucault is suggesting

contaminated by power—and there-

482%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

in her canonical essay on visual pleasure, she remarks, “It is said that ana-lysing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it. That is the intention of this article.”#/ Although feminism and " lm theory have moved beyond this posi-tion in the decades since Mulvey’s intervention, the impulse to demystify pleasure has not signi" cantly abated. Perpetually vulnerable in certain of its manifestations to demysti" cation or critique, pleasure has been a peren-nial target of the hermeneutics of suspicion. Often it seems as though the politics of pleasure is that it simply should cease. For example, the way in which the economics of postmodern capital exploits us by exploiting our capacity for pleasure (not merely our capacity for work or sublimation) has provoked intense skepticism from within the Marxist tradition about plea-sure’s political status. The Frankfurt School’s critique of the modern cul-ture industry shows how, as a mass sopori" c, capitalized pleasures func-tion as a political distraction.## “How do you distinguish,” Fredric Jameson cogently asks, “between real pleasure and mere diversion—the degradation of free time into that very di& erent commodity called ‘leisure’, the form of commodity consumption stamped on the most intimate former plea-sures from sexuality to reading?”#% As with the feminist critique, the politi-cal imperative here entails di& erentiating valid pleasures from their false or exploitative forms. False pleasure—perhaps an unexamined cognate of false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, or the hegemonic economic system.

False Pleasures?

Whether as illegitimate (exploitative) or erroneous (illusory), the notion of false pleasure paradoxically has inspired more critical commentary than its authentic, uncomplicated counterpart. To take pleasure seriously has tended to mean refusing to take it at face value. Yet it is what Foucault regarded as pleasure’s irreducible super" ciality, its resistance to psychologi-cal depth, that drew him to the topic in the " rst place. Philosopher Arnold I. Davidson elaborates this point in his " ne discussion of pleasure in Fou-cault’s work:

Although we have no di$ culty talking about and understanding the distinc-tion between true and false desires, the idea of true and false pleasures (and Foucault understood this point even i! he never put it in exactly this way) is conceptually misplaced. Pleasure is, as it were, exhausted by its surface; it

false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation or exploitative forms. False pleasure—perhaps an unexamined cognate of false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class,

of free time into that very di& erent commodity called ‘leisure’, the form of commodity consumption stamped on the most intimate former plea-sures from sexuality to reading?”#% As with the feminist critique, the politi-cal imperative here entails di& erentiating valid pleasures from their false or exploitative forms. False pleasure—perhaps an unexamined cognate of false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, or the hegemonic economic system.

cal imperative here entails di& erentiating valid pleasures from their false or exploitative forms. False pleasure—perhaps an unexamined cognate of false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation

or the hegemonic economic system.or the hegemonic economic system.or the hegemonic economic system.or the hegemonic economic system.or the hegemonic economic system.or the hegemonic economic system.or the hegemonic economic system.obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, or the hegemonic economic system.obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation obtained at our expense, whether by the dominant gender, the ruling class, false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation or exploitative forms. False pleasure—perhaps an unexamined cognate of false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation or exploitative forms. False pleasure—perhaps an unexamined cognate of false consciousness—is pleasure that can be demysti" ed as grati" cation

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%483

can be intensi" ed, increased, its qualities modi" ed, but it does not have the psychological depth of desire. It is, so to speak, related to itself and not to something else that it expresses, either truly or falsely. There is no coherent conceptual space for the science of sexuality to attach itself to pleasure, and no primacy of the psychological subject in the experience of pleasure. Struc-tures of desire lead to forms of sexual orientation, kinds of subjectivity; dif-ferent pleasures do not imply orientation at all, require no theory of subjec-tivity or identity formation.#'

This synopsis encapsulates what for Foucault was the strategic value of pleasure over desire; but it does not reckon with the recurring impulse, stemming from the hermeneutics of suspicion, to demystify pleasure as a sign of something beyond itself or, indeed, to pronounce many osten-sible pleasures as false. If, from a Foucauldian perspective, the distinction between true and false pleasures makes little sense, then perhaps a supple-mentary category or term is necessary to explain what appears as pleasure’s troubling capacity for propagating corrupt versions o! itself. This supplementary category is that o! jouissance, the virus that deforms pleasure from within. Since the term jouissance is so closely asso-ciated with French psychoanalysis, it is not one that Foucault employs. Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder what’s at stake in supplementing Foucault’s account of pleasure with this psychoanalytic concept, especially given that it was the psychoanalytic theory of desire that he was trying to think beyond. What seems nonethe-less useful about the category o! jouissance in this context is that it illumi-nates the lingering conviction that mixing pleasure with power is a recipe for exploitation. As a noxious pleasure, jouissance betokens someone else’s grati" cation at my expense. This foreign term—foreign both to Foucault’s thought and to the Anglo- American tradition that has no adequate trans-lation for it—thus helps to account for persistent suspicions that pleasure remains incompatible with either moral virtue or progressive social change. In a meditation on excess, the British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips gets at this problem in vernacular terms by observing that “the person who haunts us is the person who is having more pleasure than us.”#( Think-ing about pleasure, whether conceptually or subjectively, is vexed by what exceeds it. The persistent fantasy that someone somewhere is having more

Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having

troubling capacity for propagating corrupt versions o! itself. This supplementary category is that o! jouissance, the virus that deforms pleasure from within. Since the term jouissanceciated with French psychoanalysis, it is not one that Foucault employs. Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder

ciated with French psychoanalysis, it is not one that Foucault employs. Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure

reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder what’s at stake in supplementing Foucault’s account of pleasure with this reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder what’s at stake in supplementing Foucault’s account of pleasure with this reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having reached this point in spite of our detour and deferral, we might wonder the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact the term through which Jacques Lacan redescribes the death drive. Having principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure principle; closer to an antonym than a synonym for pleasure, it is in fact Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure Jouissance is what you get when you take pleasure beyond the pleasure

484%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

fun than me (and probably without paying for it) animates more domains of our psychic and social life than we’re usually willing to concede. On one hand, we do our best to acknowledge the appalling realities of exploitation and abuse that seem to proliferate in the contemporary world, while, on the other hand, we harbor fantasies about the noxious jouissance of the other, seething with resentment at those we imagine to be having a better time of it all than we feel ourselves to be. Unfortunately, however, separating the fantasy dimensions of pleasure from the realities may be tougher than we realize. This is why—as Slavoj 0i1ek, the most jovial of our hermeneuts of suspicion, never tires of elaborating—jouissance is not merely personal or subjective but also vitally social and political. No critic has done more than 0i1ek to demonstrate how “enjoyment” (as he translates it) motivates ideological dynamics. We might say that, in so doing, he has produced his own version of Foucault’s “spirals of power and pleasure.” My reservation about the 0i1ekian method, however, is that it too tends to make pleasure disappear—by repeatedly converting pleasure into jouissance. This vanishing act is not a by- product of 0i1ek’s magni" -cent machine but one o! its central operations. By aligning Lacanian plus- de- jouir with Marxian surplus value, 0i1ek makes pleasure constantly shade into its excess; what we know about the mechanisms of capital lends cre-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-sure quickly evaporates. Such a perspective assumes ahead of time how much is too much and, indeed, that enough is never simply enough. Sometimes, however, one wants to insist that the pleasures of a good cigar are just that—neither signs of a hankering for fellatio nor a con" rmed seat on the death drive. For 0i1ek the Foucauldian strategy o! intensifying pleasure can lead only to jouissance; but that assumption betrays overcon" dence about how much pleasure a body or system can handle before turning pathogenic. It is, in fact, impossible to adjudicate how much pleasure is too much without a highly normative sense of what the human body is and what its capaci-ties are. What may seem like way too much to you (“how can you possibly take all that up your butt?”) may not be too much for me—and vice versa. The assumption that certain pleasures are excessive or death driven tends to emerge when the pleasures in question are those of which one secretly disapproves (for instance, nonnormative sex). Often a cryptonormativism,

dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-into its excess; what we know about the mechanisms of capital lends cre-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with

it too tends to make pleasure disappear—by repeatedly converting pleasure into jouissance. This vanishing act is not a by- product of 0i1ek’s magni" -cent machine but one o! its central operations. By aligning Lacanian

with Marxian surplus value, 0i1ek makes pleasure constantly shade into its excess; what we know about the mechanisms of capital lends cre-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-

with Marxian surplus value, 0i1ek makes pleasure constantly shade into its excess; what we know about the mechanisms of capital lends cre-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-

In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. In this way, de" ned by excess or rendered as constitutively too much, plea-the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with the pleasure principle than we’re beyond it, trucking with the death drive. feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-feit o! itself. Thus, in 0i1ek’s world, no sooner do we have a moment with dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-into its excess; what we know about the mechanisms of capital lends cre-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-into its excess; what we know about the mechanisms of capital lends cre-dence to the idea that there is no pleasure that is not always already in sur-

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%485

rather than ethics or politics, motivates the diagnosis o! jouissance and its accompanying critical demysti" cations. This problem is not resolved by moving into the dispassionate realm of empirical science. For, contrary to Davidson’s claim that “there is no coherent conceptual space for the science of sexuality to attach itself to pleasure,” experimental psychology has been investigating the question of pleasure for some time. Among its striking discoveries is that it is impos-sible for us to know who is having more pleasure—or even to know reliably when I myself am having more pleasure than I had on a previous occasion. Through a range of empirical cases and meticulous argumentation, Har-vard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has shown how pleasure appears as an aspect of one’s own experience that one " nds toughest to judge accurately (“These experiments tell us that the experiences of our former selves are sometimes as opaque to us as the experiences of other people”).#) How much more challenging must it be, then, to assess with any degree of reli-ability who is having more pleasure than I am. And yet the di$ culties of measuring pleasure, far from exorcising the haunting " gure that we credit with unimpeded access to it, only intensify our suspicions in this regard. When we indulge the fantasy of greater pleasure elsewhere—whether we take it to reside in di& erent social groups, other sexual practices, or our own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-ist, and psychoanalytic guises, are not wrong to question dominant forms of pleasure; but they have made it harder for us to embrace, much less intensify, the pleasures we have, especially when those pleasures are pal-pably imbricated with power relations. Insofar as the concept o! biopower has been developed by a certain Marxist tradition, the repertoire of vanish-ing tricks performed on pleasure helps us to see how Foucault’s “spirals of power and pleasure” may have gotten lost in subsequent accounts of power. There is one additional critique of pleasure—Gilles Deleuze’s—that also needs to be considered and clari" ed before we can appreciate how the Fou-cauldian account has been transformed in recent biopolitical theory, par-ticularly that of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.#* “I can scarcely tolerate the word pleasure,” claimed Deleuze in a brief meditation on Foucault’s work. By way of explanation he added, “Pleasure seems to me to be the only means for a person or a subject to ‘" nd itself again’ in a process that surpasses it.”#+ Marking his di& erence from Fou-

own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here we take it to reside in di& erent social groups, other sexual practices, or our own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making

pleasure than I am. And yet the di$ culties of measuring pleasure, far from exorcising the haunting " gure that we credit with unimpeded access to it, only intensify our suspicions in this regard. When we indulge the fantasy of greater pleasure elsewhere—whether we take it to reside in di& erent social groups, other sexual practices, or our own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-

When we indulge the fantasy of greater pleasure elsewhere—whether we take it to reside in di& erent social groups, other sexual practices, or our own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here

ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-ous hermeneutics of suspicion I’ve been sketching, in their feminist, Marx-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making pleasure disappear or allowing it to manifest only someplace else. The vari-and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here and now. Our habits of thinking exhibit a marked propensity for making own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here we take it to reside in di& erent social groups, other sexual practices, or our own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here we take it to reside in di& erent social groups, other sexual practices, or our own future—we overlook the multiplicity of our own pleasures in the here

486%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

cault, Deleuze declared a theoretic and political antipathy to the notion of pleasure, which for him implied a recentering and, indeed, reinstatement, of the psychological subject that his notion of desire aspired to disband. Pleasure “is a reterritorialization,” he concludes.#, (Or, as Phillips puts it, “pleasures are echoes”—repetitions of the same that tend to forestall di& er-ence, movement, or change.#.) For his part, Foucault expressed an aversion to Deleuze’s emphasis on the primacy of desire—“I cannot bear the word desire”—even i! his allergic reaction stemmed primarily from the deploy-ment of this term in psychoanalysis rather than in Deleuze’s thinking.%/ Desire was too bound up with repression, lack, and the hermeneutics of subjectivity to be viable for Foucault. Yet, according to Deleuze’s account of their exchange, Foucault also intuited that “what I call pleasure is perhaps what you call desire.”%# This is a crucial insight. It is not so much that the same concept goes under di& erent names—desire in Deleuze, pleasure in Foucault—but rather that both philosophers were seeking a vocabulary to describe those forces that militate against the lures o! identity, lures that today we can recognize as speci" cally biopolitical. No small measure of the terminological confusion stems from how both Deleuze and Foucault are trying to develop ostensibly psychoanalytic vocabularies of pleasure and desire outside the jurisdiction of psychoanaly-sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan (désir) and Freud (plaisir as the standard French translation of Freud’s Lust) without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-analysis. This may be one reason for the latter’s return, in subsequent vol-umes of The History of Sexuality, to a thoroughly prepsychological era. If part of the di$ culty of pleasure lies in treating it wholly apart from the Freudian notion of a pleasure principle, then that might account for Fou-cault’s emphasis on the pragmatics of pleasure—its uses, the practices asso-ciated with it, and its status as a form of “behavior.” But what is crucial about Foucault’s insight in the exchange with Deleuze is that it points to a divi-sion within the category of pleasure itsel! between self- con" rming and self- dismissing tendencies. Whereas Deleuze hears in the term pleasure only its reterritorializing echoes, Foucault registers pleasure’s underacknowledged capacity to also deterritorialize or take - ight. This distinction is elided in Lacan’s—and subsequently Roland Barthes’s—counterposing of pleasure to jouissance, with its implication that only jouissance has the potential to decenter the subject.%% Another way of putting it would be to say that whereas Lacan made a number of " ne distinctions among phenomena that

sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan vocabularies of pleasure and desire outside the jurisdiction of psychoanaly-sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan

as the standard French translation of Freud’s plaisir as the standard French translation of Freud’s plaisir as the standard French translation of Freud’s plaisir

describe those forces that militate against the lures o! identity, lures that today we can recognize as speci" cally biopolitical. No small measure of the terminological confusion stems from how both Deleuze and Foucault are trying to develop ostensibly psychoanalytic vocabularies of pleasure and desire outside the jurisdiction of psychoanaly-sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan

plaisir as the standard French translation of Freud’s without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-

both Deleuze and Foucault are trying to develop ostensibly psychoanalytic vocabularies of pleasure and desire outside the jurisdiction of psychoanaly-sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan

those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies those terms—and, in Foucault’s case, without directly engaging psycho-without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies

as the standard French translation of Freud’s without the conceptual or institutional baggage that generally accompanies

as the standard French translation of Freud’s as the standard French translation of Freud’s as the standard French translation of Freud’s as the standard French translation of Freud’s as the standard French translation of Freud’s sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan

as the standard French translation of Freud’s sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan

as the standard French translation of Freud’s sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan vocabularies of pleasure and desire outside the jurisdiction of psychoanaly-sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan vocabularies of pleasure and desire outside the jurisdiction of psychoanaly-sis. Quite understandably, they want to use terms associated with Lacan

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%487

lie beyond the pleasure principle, Foucault’s distinctions focused on the near side, in that zone o! historical experience where pleasures may not yet exhibit the regularity or coherence of a principle. The distinction between self- con" rming and self- dismissing plea-sures helps to explain those various instances of skepticism concerning pleasure’s political viability that I’ve outlined. For example, it is the self- regarding pleasures of mastering the other through sexual use—the assump-tion that others should serve primarily as sources of self- grati" cation for the pleasure- seeking subject—that provokes feminist resistance to norma-tive pleasures, whether in mainstream cultural representations or everyday practice. This model of social relations based on commodity consumption likewise provokes Marxist doubts about pleasure. However, the essentially narcissistic pleasures of self- con" rmation or identity a$ rmation are under-mined by those austere, self- denuding pleasures that, by exposing one to forms of alterity that defeat self- recognition, inhibit appropriative selfhood, along with its logic of consumption. It is this more di$ cult dimension of pleasure that Foucault invokes in his initial preface to The Use of Pleasure when he remarks, “it would probably not be worth the trouble of making books if they failed to teach the author something he had not known before, if they did not lead to unforeseen places, and if they did not disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of the book is to be an experience.”%' Work that takes its author to an unex-pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of authorship (in which the work re- ects its author’s ideal image o! himself ).

“My Name Is Legion”

The signi" cance of what I’m calling self- dislocating pleasures lies in their resistance to formations of power that depend on—and, indeed, produce—identities. To observe that these formations of power are speci" cally bio-political is to confront directly the question of where and how power takes hold o! life, that is, by what mechanisms it penetrates the vital sphere. Given how most contemporary theorists of the biopolitical overlook the domain of sex and sexuality in their analyses, it is worth recalling that Fou-cault introduces his notion o! biopower at the end of the introductory vol-ume of The History of Sexuality. Yet critical interest in biopower picked up only after the publication, in 1997, of “Society Must Be Defended”, Foucault’s course o! lectures at the Collège de France in 1976, even though the " nal

toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of if they did not lead to unforeseen places, and if they did not disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of the book is to be an experience.”%' Work that takes its author to an unex-the book is to be an experience.”

along with its logic of consumption. It is this more di$ cult dimension of pleasure that Foucault invokes in his initial preface to when he remarks, “it would probably not be worth the trouble of making books if they failed to teach the author something he had not known before, if they did not lead to unforeseen places, and if they did not disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of the book is to be an experience.” Work that takes its author to an unex-pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of

books if they failed to teach the author something he had not known before, if they did not lead to unforeseen places, and if they did not disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of

that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure that remains quite distinct from the conventionally narcissistic pleasure of pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure

Work that takes its author to an unex-pected place, where he is no longer himself, confers a dislocating pleasure

Work that takes its author to an unex- Work that takes its author to an unex- Work that takes its author to an unex- Work that takes its author to an unex- Work that takes its author to an unex-toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of

Work that takes its author to an unex-toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of

Work that takes its author to an unex-toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of if they did not lead to unforeseen places, and if they did not disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of if they did not lead to unforeseen places, and if they did not disperse one toward a strange and new relation with himself. The pain and pleasure of

488%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

lecture, on March 17, 1976, repeats almost verbatim much of the " nal sec-tion of La volonté de savoir (which saw print a few months later, in October 1976).%( Somehow Foucault’s remarks about biopower needed a context other than that of sexuality to really " re the critical- political imagination. From my perspective, however, reframing the question o! biopower in the context o! his insights about pleasure makes clear what has been missed not only by his successors but also by Foucault himself. If, in Discipline and Punish, Foucault aimed to displace centralized, juridical conceptions of power with a disciplinary model that emphasized power’s social and institutional dispersion, then barely a year later he was supplementing the disciplinary model with a regulatory one by means of the notion o! biopower. His point of contrast, in the " nal section of La volonté de savoir, is less juridical power than sovereign power, understood in terms of the right to kill or let live. Beginning in the eighteenth cen-tury, Foucault claims, “the ancient right to take life or let live was replaced by a power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death.”%) The symme-try of Foucault’s formulation—sovereign power is the right to take life or let live, whereas biopower is the right to make live or let die—doubtless accounts for part o! its appeal. The elegance of this conceptual symmetry is only enhanced by the scalar distinction between the anatomo- politics of the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”%* Foucault schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17, 1976:

Series 1: body—organism—discipline—institutionsSeries 2: population—biological processes—regulatory mechanisms—State%+

The signi" cance of sexuality, in this context, is that it “represents the pre-cise point where the disciplinary and the regulatory, the body and the population, are articulated.”%, Yet, despite the fact that it stands poised at the intersection of these two series, sexuality—and with it pleasure—has dropped out of subsequent accounts o! biopower, including Foucault’s own. Thus, while he tracked the history of sexuality back to ancient Greece and Rome, Foucault pursued the question o! biopower separately, in terms of the emergence of modern liberalism during the eighteenth century.%. To some extent, the focus on sexuality as a speci" cally biopolitical phenomenon has fallen victim to the neatness of Foucault’s paradigm, inso-far as the division between micro and macro situates biopower too reso-

the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and is only enhanced by the scalar distinction between the anatomo- politics of the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model),

it to the point of death.”try of Foucault’s formulation—sovereign power is the right to take life or let live, whereas biopower is the right to make live or let die—doubtless accounts for part o! its appeal. The elegance of this conceptual symmetry is only enhanced by the scalar distinction between the anatomo- politics of the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17,

accounts for part o! its appeal. The elegance of this conceptual symmetry is only enhanced by the scalar distinction between the anatomo- politics of the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and

schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17, schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17, schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17, schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17, “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”schematizes this set of distinctions as two series in his lecture of March 17, “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”“in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”“in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”“in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”“in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”“in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), “in which bodies are replaced by general biological processes.”the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the biopolitics of whole populations (as described by the regulatory model), the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and is only enhanced by the scalar distinction between the anatomo- politics of the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and is only enhanced by the scalar distinction between the anatomo- politics of the individual human body (as described by the disciplinary model) and

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%489

lutely on the side of population or mass e& ects. When we factor pleasure back into the picture, however, we start to see how biopower dissolves the individualized body of discipline not simply into the mass but also into the microcosms of tissue economies, multidirectional circulatory - ows, and microbial life.'/ In other words, Foucault’s distinction between individual anatomy and population (on which the distinction between disciplinary and regulatory power relies) obscures the subindividual microphysics of power and pleasure that he traced so compellingly in earlier sections of La volonté de savoir. There are not merely two scalar dimensions through which power interweaves human life—the microlevel o! bodies and the macrolevel of populations—but at least three. The obscured level, that of molecularity, is what Foucault was gesturing toward when, in a skirmish with the Lacanians, he referred to the intriguing but undeveloped notion of the “sub- individual.”'# This notion is clari" ed in another interview from the same period when he explains, “What I want to show is how power relations can materially penetrate the body in depth, without depending even on the mediation of the subject’s own representations. If power takes hold on the body, this isn’t through its having " rst to be interiorized in people’s con-sciousnesses.”'% Distancing himself from the tradition of political theory that conceptualizes power in terms o! ideology, Foucault rejects the Althus-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion o! identi" cation maintains the illusion of the human body as a unity, when it is instead through its disunity, at the “subindividual” level, that power takes hold. Formations o! biopower partialize human bodies di& erently—more globally but also more intimately—than those of disciplinary power. What Nikolas Rose calls the molecularization of vitality has, as one o! its con-sequences, the transformation of each and every body into a multitude.'' This is a way of saying that, in contrast to disciplinary power, biopolitical relations rely far less on subjective or social identities for their function-ing. If Foucault’s account of discipline showed how we tend to act as if we believe in the political " ctions of sexual and social identity, then his account o! biopower discloses the human body itself as no less illusory than those other, more obviously fabricated " ctions. The " ction of our bodies as self- contained unities, marked by sexual division but nonetheless indi-vidually bounded, is particularly intransigent because it grounds all other

serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-that conceptualizes power in terms o! ideology, Foucault rejects the Althus-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is

can materially penetrate the body in depth, without depending even on the mediation of the subject’s own representations. If power takes hold on the body, this isn’t through its having " rst to be interiorized in people’s con-

Distancing himself from the tradition of political theory that conceptualizes power in terms o! ideology, Foucault rejects the Althus-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion

Distancing himself from the tradition of political theory that conceptualizes power in terms o! ideology, Foucault rejects the Althus-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-

but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration but also that, by construing anatomy in imaginary terms, the very notion not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is not simply that identi" cation is unnecessary for power’s bodily penetration cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-cal in terms o! identi" cation (or imaginary misrecognition). His point is serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-that conceptualizes power in terms o! ideology, Foucault rejects the Althus-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-that conceptualizes power in terms o! ideology, Foucault rejects the Althus-serian notion o! interpellation precisely because it understands the politi-

490%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

identitarian illusions (this is the point of Lacan’s mirror stage). Philosopher Alphonso Lingis contributes toward demystifying this persistent illusion when he describes the microscopic hordes that swarm through human life:

Human animals live in symbiosis with thousands of species of anaerobic bac-teria, six hundred species in our mouths that neutralize the toxins all plants produce to ward o& their enemies, four hundred species in our intestines, without which we could not digest and absorb the food we ingest. . . . The number of microbes that colonize our bodies exceeds the number of cells in our bodies by up to a hundredfold. They replicate with their own DNA and RNA and not ours.'(

Picturing what might be called an empire o! human corporeality, Lingis suggests how the body is a multitude without being strictly populous.') It is not a question of the human body miniaturizing the social body or simply replicating on a di& erent scale the multitude about which Hardt and Negri write. Rather, it is a matter of recognizing—in the face of that most ele-mentary self- recognition—how each and every ostensibly discrete human body contains multitudes or, put better, is multitudinous. The counter- recognition of radical bodily porousness, by registering our commonality and perpetual contact with others, enables vastly expanded possibilities for politics and for pleasure. This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-tion of the body as a multitude—directly con- ict. I would describe this con-- ict as the fundamental political antagonism. Making good on a politics of the multitude thus requires a thoroughgoing appreciation o! how corporeal identitarianism—imaginary capture of the human body—persistently fore-closes recognition of our bodies as always already multitudinous.'* Because multitude begins in the body’s libidinal networks, in their competing and incommensurable pleasures, identity represents one of the most insidi-ous pathologies of power. And, it must be said, the notion o! identity is no less insidious for being quali" ed, à la mode, as “multiple,” “strategic,” or “minoritarian.” Far from constituting an expression of subjectivity, iden-tity is the ruse through which we negate subjectivity’s potential for change. Another way of putting this would be to insist that there are no political identities that are not in the end conservative, even if unwittingly. Hence, for much the same set of reasons that Foucault hates the word desire and Deleuze cannot stand pleasure, I loathe the term identity.

and perpetual contact with others, enables vastly expanded possibilities for

This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as

write. Rather, it is a matter of recognizing—in the face of that most ele-mentary self- recognition—how each and every ostensibly discrete human body contains multitudes or, put better, is multitudinous. The counter- recognition of radical bodily porousness, by registering our commonality and perpetual contact with others, enables vastly expanded possibilities for

and for pleasure This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-

recognition of radical bodily porousness, by registering our commonality and perpetual contact with others, enables vastly expanded possibilities for

narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— narcissistic self- recognition of the body as a unity versus political recogni-well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as well as political struggle, since the two kinds of recognition involved— This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as This is not as easy as it might sound. The task entails psychical as

and perpetual contact with others, enables vastly expanded possibilities for and perpetual contact with others, enables vastly expanded possibilities for

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%491

What the distinction between disciplinary and regulatory power use-fully makes evident is that not all forms of power depend on categories of identity for their e& ective functioning. To the degree that biopower dis-solves into larger aggregates those identity formations on which disci-plinary power relies, there exists con- ict as well as coordination between these modalities of power. By redescribing this Foucauldian problematic in terms of the multitude’s biopolitical production against empire, Hardt and Negri elaborate a notion of multitude that registers how resistance emanates from innumerable points that are not exterior to, but immanent within, biopower.'+ In other words, the notion o! biopower, by facilitating their rede" nition of the Marxist project in terms of power rather than social class, has enabled the authors of Empire to perceive a greater potential for resistance, both actual and virtual, than would be possible in a strictly class- based analysis. Their multitude exceeds the working class and the impover-ished, even as it includes them. I " nd this understanding of power relations, with its robust account of resistance as immanent to power, markedly preferable to Agamben’s redescription o! biopolitics, in which bare life o& ers zero resistance to the sovereign power that produces it through mechanisms of exception.', In his attempt to revise Foucault, Agamben instead reverts to a pre- Foucauldian model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-tion of homo sacer). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact that the former hardly quali" es as a power relation in Foucault’s terms, owing to the extreme centrifugation that deprives one half of the couple of any leeway whatsoever. I suspect that the appeal of Agamben’s account, while ostensibly attributable to its utility in describing our post- 9/11 politi-cal landscape, lies more fundamentally in its reassurance that we know where the power is because it has been so starkly consolidated. Homo Sacer permits us once more to believe in, and perhaps identify with, the reassur-ing idea of wholly innocent victims, those who have been divested utterly of power. Of course, it is possible to conceive of power in such an implau-sibly polarized manner only if one forgets about sexuality (not to mention pleasure), as Agamben manages to do in a book that begins with La volonté de savoir. As I’ve tried to show, accounts o! biopolitics that focus on power’s massi" cation have scant means for explaining the microphysics o! its func-tioning at the corporeal level. Speaking in terms of the multitude of the

model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all attempt to revise Foucault, Agamben instead reverts to a pre- Foucauldian model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-

I " nd this understanding of power relations, with its robust account of resistance as immanent to power, markedly preferable to Agamben’s redescription o! biopolitics, in which bare life o& ers zero resistance to the sovereign power that produces it through mechanisms of exception.attempt to revise Foucault, Agamben instead reverts to a pre- Foucauldian model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-

). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact

sovereign power that produces it through mechanisms of exception.attempt to revise Foucault, Agamben instead reverts to a pre- Foucauldian model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all

relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life

relation caricatures that of Hegel’s master- slave, were it not for the fact ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life ). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life

the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life

the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life

the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-). One might venture that Agamben’s sovereign–bare life

the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all the power (the position of sovereignty) and those who have none (the posi-model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all attempt to revise Foucault, Agamben instead reverts to a pre- Foucauldian model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all attempt to revise Foucault, Agamben instead reverts to a pre- Foucauldian model that treats power relations as polarized between those who have all

492%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

body (rather than a multitude o! bodies) represents my e& ort to refocus attention on the struggle of power relations at every level, including the molecular, and the e& ects of pleasure that accompany them. The deeper power’s corporeal penetration, the greater may be the bodily pleasures of resistance. By multiplying almost in" nitely the sources of power and resistance, as well as by showing their mobility and dynamism, Foucault detotalizes power akin to how psychoanalysis—through its theory of the drives—detotalizes the human body.'. In this respect, my reservation about post- Foucauldian critiques of sovereignty stems from their tendency to retotalize power as something that, in its separateness from us, may be either a more locatable target of resistance or, conversely, an impossible foe thanks to its all- encompassing size and scale. In either case, power remains reassuringly external to the speaker. By contrast, Foucault’s immanentist account of power takes the topological " gure of the spiral as its model; this " gure changes the terms through which relations among heterogeneous elements should be under-stood by emphasizing their mutual interdependence. The conceptual struc-ture of Foucault’s “spirals of power and pleasure”—and this will be my " nal claim—may be drawn from the double helix of DNA. If so, then it would be the iconography of the life sciences, with its memorable image o! inter-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-son and Francis Crick in 1953, revolutionized the " eld of molecular biology almost immediately; but it also rapidly captured the cultural imagination.(/ Thanks to widely disseminated photographs o! Watson and Crick’s three- dimensional, physical models of the double helix, the structure of DNA became available as a paradigm for conceptualizing relationships among other entities. It may even have represented for Foucault a nonstructuralist paradigm for thinking dynamic interrelationships.(# Re- ecting on Watson and Crick’s discovery in 1966, Georges Can-guilhem suggested that it rede" ned biological life “as a meaning inscribed in matter.”(% Given his work’s in- uence on Foucault—not to mention that Canguilhem refers to The History of Madness and The Birth of the Clinic along-side Watson and Crick—it seems reasonable to assume that Foucault might have had the spirals of DNA in mind when he was formulating the vital interrelationship of power and pleasure. The double helix of DNA " gures

twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-be the iconography of the life sciences, with its memorable image o! inter-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing

through which relations among heterogeneous elements should be under-stood by emphasizing their mutual interdependence. The conceptual struc-ture of Foucault’s “spirals of power and pleasure”—and this will be my " nal claim—may be drawn from the double helix of DNA. If so, then it would be the iconography of the life sciences, with its memorable image o! inter-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-

claim—may be drawn from the double helix of DNA. If so, then it would be the iconography of the life sciences, with its memorable image o! inter-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-

covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-covery of the double- helical structure of DNA, announced by James Wat-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing how power takes hold o! life at the “subindividual” or molecular level. Dis-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-nishes the philosopher o! biopower with an ideal " gure for conceptualizing twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-be the iconography of the life sciences, with its memorable image o! inter-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-be the iconography of the life sciences, with its memorable image o! inter-twined chains representing the transfer of genetic information, that fur-

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%493

a radical immanentism that for Foucault betokened the inseparability of power and pleasure not only from each other but also from life. If, despite his persistent preoccupation with plaisir, there can be no de" nitive answer to the question of what Foucault meant by the term—no possibility of pin-ning it down to a single meaning, function, or position—my argument has been that pleasure nevertheless needs to be thought together with, rather than independent of, the problematic o! biopower. Pleasures that we barely know about lie at the heart o! biopolitics.

Notes

1 TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK TKTKTTKTKTKTK

2 “An Interview by Stephen Riggins,” in The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984, vol. 1, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: New Press, 1997), 129.

3 See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 2, The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House, 1985).

4 I am referring to Lee Edelman (No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive [Dur-ham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004]), whose argument I have critiqued elsewhere. See Tim Dean, “An Impossible Embrace: Queerness, Futurity, and the Death Drive,” A Time for the Humanities: Futurity and the Limits of Autonomy, ed. James J. Bono, Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), 122–40.

5 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House, 1985), 157.

6 Michel Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity,” in Essential Works, vol. 1, 165 (original emphases).

7 Michel Foucault, “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview o! Work in Progress,” in Essential Works, vol. 1, 269.

8 Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol. 1, 44. 9 Ibid., 45 (original emphases). 10 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” [1975], in Visual and Other Plea-

sures (London: Macmillan, 1989), 16. As Wendy Steiner explains, in The Scandal of Plea-sure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), a whole host of cultural pressures has increased the challenge of recuperating critically viable notions of visual and aesthetic pleasure.

11 See Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, ed. Gunzelin Noeri, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-versity Press, 2007), 120–67.

12 Fredric Jameson, “Pleasure: A Political Issue,” in Formations of Pleasure (London: Rout-ledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 3. The fact that this volume, dedicated to the question of pleasure and published seven years after the " rst volume of The History of Sexuality, contains barely a single reference to Foucault’s account of pleasure in its dozen articles

Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), A Time for the Humanities: Futurity and the Limits of AutonomyTim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008),

The History of SexualityThe History of Sexuality

No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Driveham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004]), whose argument I have critiqued elsewhere. See Tim Dean, “An Impossible Embrace: Queerness, Futurity, and the Death Drive,” A Time for the Humanities: Futurity and the Limits of AutonomyTim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008),

The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, (New York: Random House, 1985), 157.

See Tim Dean, “An Impossible Embrace: Queerness, Futurity, and the Death Drive,” A Time for the Humanities: Futurity and the Limits of AutonomyTim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008),

6 Michel Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity,” in 6 Michel Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity,” in 6 Michel Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity,” in 6 Michel Foucault, “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity,” in (New York: Random House, 1985), 157.(New York: Random House, 1985), 157.(New York: Random House, 1985), 157.(New York: Random House, 1985), 157.(New York: Random House, 1985), 157.

The History of SexualityThe History of Sexuality, vol. 1, , vol. 1, , vol. 1, , vol. 1, , vol. 1, , vol. 1, An IntroductionAn Introduction

Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), Tim Dean, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008),

494%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

gives some indication o! how hard it has been for the Anglo- American Marxist Left to come to terms with Foucault’s critique of power.

13 Arnold I. Davidson, The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Forma-tion of Concepts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 212.

14 Adam Phillips, On Balance (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2010), 25. 15 Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (New York: Knopf, 2006), 49. On the evolution-

ary science of pleasure, see Paul Bloom’s very interesting study (whose title probably would horrify Foucault), How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like (New York: Norton, 2010). Contra Davidson, Bloom demonstrates at length how pleasure can be falsi" ed, insofar as it depends on beliefs that can be revealed as mis-taken, such as beliefs about the identity or gender of the person with whom you’ve just had sex (as in the phenomenon of the bed trick).

16 Although I have in mind the Empire trilogy throughout the latter portion of this paper, it would require another essay to do justice to either Hardt and Negri’s intervention or the speci" cs of their engagement with Deleuze. See Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004); and Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 2009). My appreciation of the Empire project has been enhanced by the exchanges collected in Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, In Praise of the Common: A Conversation on Philosophy and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).

17 Gilles Deleuze, “Desire and Pleasure,” trans. Daniel W. Smith, in Foucault and His Interlocutors, ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189 and 190.

18 Ibid., 190. 19 Adam Phillips, On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted Life (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49. 20 Quoted in Deleuze, “Desire and Pleasure,” 189. 21 Ibid., 189. Wendy Grace conveniently omits this point in her minutely researched but

ultimately misguided account of what she calls the “radical divergence that separates Foucault and Deleuze when it comes to analyzing sexuality independent of psycho-analysis.” See Wendy Grace, “Faux Amis: Foucault and Deleuze on Sexuality and Desire,” Critical Inquiry 36, no. 1 (2009): 54.

22 See Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, trans. Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975); and Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, book 7, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960, ed. Jacques- Alain Miller, trans. Dennis Porter (New York: Norton, 1992), esp. 179–204.

23 Michel Foucault, “Preface to The History of Sexuality, Volume Two,” in Essential Works, vol. 1, 205. His ending the preface in this way recalls his remarks at the end of the introduction to The Archaeology of Knowledge, where he also famously described the “pleasure of writing” as identity canceling: “I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same.” Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon, 1972), 17.

, ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189 17 Gilles Deleuze, “Desire and Pleasure,” trans. Daniel W. Smith, in

, ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189

Empire project has been enhanced by the exchanges collected in Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, A Conversation on Philosophy and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

17 Gilles Deleuze, “Desire and Pleasure,” trans. Daniel W. Smith, in , ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189

On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeMA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49.

17 Gilles Deleuze, “Desire and Pleasure,” trans. Daniel W. Smith, in , ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189

MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49.MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49.MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49.MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49.On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted Life

MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 49.On Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted LifeOn Flirtation: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Uncommitted Life

, ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189 , ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189 , ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189 , ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189 , ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 189

Dean • The Biopolitics of Pleasure%495

24 See Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976, ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana, trans. David Macey (New York: Pica-dor, 2003). When comparing “Society Must Be Defended”, 239–54, with History of Sexu-ality, vol. 1, 135–50, it is hard to deduce which was written " rst.

25 Foucault, History of Sexuality, vol. 1, 138 (original emphases). Compare the French original: “On pourrait dire qu’au vieux droit de faire mourir ou de laisser vivre s’est sub-stitué un pouvoir de faire vivre ou de rejeter dans la mort” (La volonté de savoir [Paris: Gallimard, 1976], 181). The fact that Foucault claims one power replaces the other, when in “Society Must Be Defended” he was more cautious and nuanced about their historical interrelationship (“I wouldn’t say exactly that sovereignty’s old right—to take life or let live—was replaced, but it came to be complemented by a new right which does not erase the old right but which does penetrate it, permeate it” [241]), suggests, at least to me, that the lecture of March 17, 1976, cribs from and modi" es a text that already was composed, even i! it would not see print for a further seven months.

26 Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”, 249. 27 Ibid., 250. 28 Ibid., 252. 29 See Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979,

ed. Michel Senellart, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 30 For a fascinating account o! biotechnology’s disaggregation o! human anatomy, see

Catherine Waldby and Robert Mitchell, Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs, and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). Although Waldby and Mitchell decline to mention Foucault, it would be instructive to reread his account of the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-ality’” (History of Sexuality, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (Tissue Economies, 23–24).

31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 1980), 208.

32 Michel Foucault, “The History of Sexuality” (interview with Lucette Finas), in Power/Knowledge, 186.

33 Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty- First Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

34 Alphonso Lingis, Dangerous Emotions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 27.

35 The distinction between a notion of the multitude and that of the people—which reaches back to the seventeenth- century disagreement between Spinoza and Hobbes over the sources of political authority—is laid out especially clearly in Paolo Virno, A Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004), 21–26. The distinction, with its accompanying argument, is developed in Paolo Virno, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation, trans. Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea Casson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008), esp. 25–42.

36 What I’m getting at here is close to what Hardt and Negri describe as a radical bio-potentiality of the - esh—“a kind of social - esh, a - esh that is not a body, a - esh that

the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty-

the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- , vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty-

" rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities History of Sexuality, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty-

" rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities

ed. Michel Senellart, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). 30 For a fascinating account o! biotechnology’s disaggregation o! human anatomy, see

Catherine Waldby and Robert Mitchell, Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs, and Cell Lines (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). Although Waldby and

Mitchell decline to mention Foucault, it would be instructive to reread his account of the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-

History of Sexuality, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (

31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in

Mitchell decline to mention Foucault, it would be instructive to reread his account of the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-

31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in 31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in 31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in 31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (

31 Michel Foucault, “The Confession of the Flesh,” in has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (" rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (" rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (" rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities has had a decisive e& ect on the biopolitics o! human tissues” (" rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities

, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities

, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities

, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- " rst century, given how “the extension o! intellectual property rights to living entities

, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- , vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- , vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-

, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-

, vol. 1, 148)—in light of their account o! blood in the twenty- the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-the “symbolics o! blood”—part of the historical transition “from ‘sanguinity’ to ‘sexu-

496%The South Atlantic Quarterly • Summer 2012

is common, living substance. We need to learn what this # esh can do. . . . The - esh of the multitude is pure potential, an unformed life force, and in this sense an element of social being, aimed constantly at the fullness o! life” (Multitude, 192; emphasis added).

37 See Hardt and Negri, Multitude, esp. 93–95. 38 See Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-

Roazen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998). 39 I develop this claim in “An Impossible Embrace,” esp. 138–39. 40 See J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” Nature

(April 25, 1953), 737–38, reprinted in James D. Watson, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, ed. Gunther S. Stent, Norton Critical Editions (New York: Norton, 1980), 237–41. Watson’s autobiographical account of the discovery, surrounded by controversy from its moment of publication, was translated into French in 1968 (the same year it appeared in English) and thus may well have been familiar to Foucault by the time he composed La volonté de savoir. See James D. Watson, La double hélice: ou comment fut découverte la structure de l’ADN, trans. Henriette Joël (Paris: Robert La& ont, 1968).

41 Here I di& er from Judith Roof who, in The Poetics of DNA (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), reads DNA as exemplifying a structuralist sense of structure and therefore as anathema to Foucault.

42 Georges Canguilhem, “The Concept of Life,” in A Vital Rationalist: Selected Writings from Georges Canguilhem, ed. François Delaporte, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Zone, 1994), 317.

42 Georges Canguilhem, “The Concept of Life,” in A Vital Rationalist: Selected Writings , ed. François Delaporte, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New

York: Zone, 1994), 317.