Please join us on Monday, 11/27, in Swift 201 for a presentation by:

Kirsten Collins

PhD Candidate, University of Chicago Divinity School

“The Chastity of Critique: Law, Biopolitics, and Biblical Hermeneutics in Confessions of the Flesh”

Why does Foucault drop the idea of race and turn toward religion in his work on the foundations of the modern state and subject? Drawing “Society Must be Defended” into conversation with Confessions of the Flesh and archival sources, I show how the hermeneutic of the self that Foucault finds in early Christian texts on virginity is premised on a hermeneutics of the text—specifically, a supersessionist figuration of Judaism as a religion of flesh and law. Drawing on J. Kameron Carter among others, I argue that Foucault finds, in his Christian sources, a structure of critique critical to both the maintenance of the state and resistance, and that examining the place of Judaism in Confessions of the Flesh can allow us to trace production of race from religion, and the limits of the critique that we depend on to recognize it.

The paper, to be read in advance of the workshop, can be found here: collins-chastity of critique-JSW-1