McCall Essay Submitted to Iranian Studies Journal "Iran Namag"

Elmira, NY (09/24/2018) — Dr. Corey McCall, associate professor of philosophy, was invited to submit an essay to a special issue of Iran Namag: A Quarterly Journal of Iranian Studies devoted to French philosopher Michel Foucault's writings on the Iranian Revolution. His essay is entitled "Seeking Prophecy in the Modern State: Foucault, Iran, and the Conduct of the Intellectual".

According to McCall, "Foucault becomes increasingly interested in parresia (frank or fearless speech) in his lecture courses of the 1980s, but we can glean the origins of this later concern with fearless speech through Foucault's conception of counter-conduct as developed in aecurity, territory, population. The first section of this essay focuses on the role that governmentality plays in Foucault's Iran texts before making the connection between governmentality and parresia plain."

The second section focuses on various anticipations of parresia in Foucault's writings on the Iranian Revolution beginning with Foucault's understanding of the intellectual's political role and his claim that we understand philosophy as "the politics of truth" before turning to Foucault's ambivalent remarks concerning the intellectual's prophetic voice.

Finally, McCall concludes the essay with some general consideration of Foucault's conception of the modern intellectual, based upon insights from his Iranian writings and his collaborative work in the early 1970s with the Groupe d'Information sur les Prisons (GIP) and his characterization of Ali Shariati as the intellectual voice of the Iranian Revolution.

The contents of the issue can be found here.

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