New Article: Artistic Parrhesia and the Genealogy of Ethics in Foucault and Benjamin

New article: Brigstocke, J. (2013)  'Artistic Parrhesia and the Genealogy of Ethics in
Foucault and  Benjamin', Theory, Culture & Society,  30(1), 57-78.

In The Use of Pleasure,  Michel  Foucault suggests that it is possible to read Walter Benjamin’s writings  on  Baudelaire as a contribution to a genealogy of ethics. This article  experiments  with reading Benjamin in this way. It shows that a distinctive analysis of each  of the four elements of Foucauldian ethics (ethical substance,  mode of subjectivation,  ethical practice and telos) can be found in Benjamin’s work on Baudelaire and the Paris arcades. Specifically, the article makes the  case for reading Benjamin in terms of his valuable contribution to  understandings of the role played by art in modern forms of ‘parrhesia’, or courageous truth-telling. However, whereas Foucault’s notion of ‘arts of  living’ focuses on challenging actual relations of power, Benjamin’s focuses on  activating potential forms of power. In this way, Benjamin’s ethical framework  tests the limits of Foucault’s conceptualization of the government of self and  others.