Foucault's Orient : The Conundrum of Cultural Difference, From Tunisia to Japan

Prés. de l'éd.: Foucault lived in Tunisia for two years and travelled to Japan and Iran more than once. Yet throughout his critical scholarship, he insisted that the cultures of the "Orient" constitute the "limit" of Western rationality. Using archival research supplemented by interviews with key scholars in Tunisia, Japan and France, this book examines the philosophical sources, evolution as well as contradictions of Foucault's experience with non-Western cultures. Beyond tracing Foucault's journey into the world of otherness, the book reveals the personal, political as well as methodological effects of a radical conception of cultural difference that extolled the local over the cosmopolitan Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 12 1. The Chinese Encyclopedia and the Challenge of Difference 24 2. Madness and Cultural Difference 56 3. Foucault and Kant’s Cosmopolitan Anthropology 73 4. Foucault’s Negative Anthropology 108 5. Foucault’s Anthropology of the Iranian Revolution 133 6. The Heterotopia of Tunisia 170 7. The Enigma of Japan 203 8. Japan and Foucault’s Anthropological Bind 237 Epilogue 256 Bibliography 266 Index 285 Foucault lived for two years in Tunisia and travelled to Japan and Iran more than once. Yet throughout his critical scholarship, he insisted that the cultures of the Orient and the Occident constitute the "limit" of Western rationality. Using interviews with scholars familiar with him from Tunisia and Japan, the book examines the manner in which Foucault experienced and explained his encounters with non-Western cultures