Does Foucault have heirs? : looking back at a reception and its issues

The paper examines how the reception of Michel Foucault’s works has been continually reshaped — from the published books to the Dits et Écrits, the Collège de France lectures, and recently released manuscipts from the archives. It identifies four major ‘families’ of this reception: philological engagements with the texts, attempts to update Foucault’s concepts for the analysis of contemporary society, methodological appropriation of his “toolbox” to new domains, and more speculative or de-historicized uses of his work. The paper argues that the foucauldian approach depends on two non-negotiable commitments: rigorous historicization and a focus on analysing changing modes of subjectivation. Together, these commitments define what Foucault later called the posture of critique.