Active Intolerance: Michel Foucault, the Prisons Information Group, and the Future of Abolition

by Perry Zurn (Editor), Andrew Dilts (Editor)

Overview

This book is an interdisciplinary collection of essays on Le Groupe d'information sur les prisons (The Prisons Information Group, or GIP). The GIP was a radical activist group, extant between 1970 and 1973, in which Michel Foucault was heavily involved. It aimed to facilitate the circulation of information about living conditions in French prisons and, over time, it catalyzed several revolts and instigated minor reforms. In Foucault's words, the GIP sought to identify what was 'intolerable' about the prison system and then to produce 'an active intolerance' of that same intolerable reality. To do this, the GIP 'gave prisoners the floor,' so as to hear from them about what to resist and how. The essays collected here explore the GIP's resources both for Foucault studies and for prison activism today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349552863
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	08/24/2016
Edition description:	1st ed. 2016
Pages:	297
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Perry Zurn is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hampshire College, USA.

Andrew Dilts is Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University, USA.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Foreword; Bernard Harcourt
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Active Intolerance: An Introduction; Perry Zurn and Andrew Dilts
PART I: HISTORY: THE GIP AND FOUCAULT IN CONTEXT
1. The Abolition of Philosophy; Ladelle McWhorter
2. The Untimely Speech of the GIP Counter-Archive; Lynne Huffer
3. Conduct and Power: Foucault ' 's Methodological Expansions in 1971; Colin Koopman
4. Work and Failure: Assessing the Prisons Information Group; Perry Zurn
Intolerable 1: Abu Ali Abdur ' 'Rahman
PART II: BODY: RESISTANCE AND THE POLITICS OF CARE
5. Breaking the Conditioning: The Relevance of the Prisons Information Group; Steve Champion (Adisa Kamara)
6. Between Discipline and Care-giving: Changing Prison Population Demographics and Possibilities for Self-Transformation; Dianna Taylor
7. Unruliness without Rioting: Hunger Strikes in Contemporary Politics; Falguni Sheth
Intolerable 2: Derrick Quintero
PART III: VOICE: PRISONERS AND THE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL
8. Disrupted Foucault: Los Angeles ' ' Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) and the Obsolescence of White Academic Raciality; Dylan Rodríguez
9. Investigations from Marx to Foucault; Marcelo Hoffman
10. The GIP as a Neoliberal Intervention: Trafficking in Illegible Concepts; Shannon Winnubst
11. The Disordering of Discourse: Voice and Authority in the GIP; Nancy Luxon
Intolerable 3: Donald Middlebrooks
PART IV: PRESENT: THE PRISON AND ITS FUTURE(S)
12. Beyond Guilt and Innocence: The Creaturely Politics of Prisoner Resistance Movements; Lisa Guenther
13. Resisting ' 'Massive Elimination ' ': Foucault, Immigration, and the GIP; Natalie Cisneros
14. ' 'Can They Ever Escape? ' ': Foucault, Black Feminism, and the Intimacy of Abolition; Stephen Dillon
Notes on Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This is a powerful and compelling set of essays exploring the context and legacy of the Prisons Information Group and how their work might be useful today. Decentering Foucault does more than rightly recognize the role of others in this group. It also helps us to understand Foucault's abiding interest in collaboration, an interest that is reflected in both his academic and activist work.' - Stuart Elden, University of Warwick, UK

"Active Intolerance is an important collection, one that deepens our philosophical and pragmatic understandings of the promises and compromises of contemporary abolitionist advocacy. Read this volume for contributions that allow us to pace the floor, working on our resistance and conflicted relationships in search of a better future.' Joy James, Williams College, USA, and author of Seeking the Beloved Community

"While we often hear about the liberal virtue of tolerance, Perry Zurn and Andrew Dilts' powerful and necessary collection makes a compellingcase for the active cultivation of intolerance. Active Intolerance convinces us that we need to be intolerant of the prison and of the racist and carceral society of which mass incarceration is the extreme manifestation." - Chloe Taylor, University of Alberta, Canada

"Active Intolerance pushes our thinking about prisons, prisoners, public intellectuals, and abolition forward. There is something here for the Foucault scholar and prison abolitionist alike. The scholarship is insightful and it deepens our understanding of the problems of mass incarnation and how to work against it. This book must be reckoned with." - Rashad Shabazz, author of Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity

Editorial Reviews

"This is a powerful and compelling set of essays exploring the context and legacy of the Prisons Information Group and how their work might be useful today. Decentering Foucault does more than rightly recognize the role of others in this group. It also helps us to understand Foucault's abiding interest in collaboration, an interest that is reflected in both his academic and activist work.' - Stuart Elden, University of Warwick, UK

"Active Intolerance is an important collection, one that deepens our philosophical and pragmatic understandings of the promises and compromises of contemporary abolitionist advocacy. Read this volume for contributions that allow us to pace the floor, working on our resistance and conflicted relationships in search of a better future.' Joy James, Williams College, USA, and author of Seeking the Beloved Community

"While we often hear about the liberal virtue of tolerance, Perry Zurn and Andrew Dilts' powerful and necessary collection makes a compelling case for the active cultivation of intolerance. Active Intolerance convinces us that we need to be intolerant of the prison and of the racist and carceral society of which mass incarceration is the extreme manifestation." - Chloe Taylor, University of Alberta, Canada

"Active Intolerance pushes our thinking about prisons, prisoners, public intellectuals, and abolition forward. There is something here for the Foucault scholar and prison abolitionist alike. The scholarship is insightful and it deepens our understanding of the problems of mass incarnation and how to work against it. This book must be reckoned with." - Rashad Shabazz, author of Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity

From the Publisher