Andreas Folkers

Bio: Andreas Folkers is an academic researcher from University of Giessen. The author has contributed to research in topics: Materiality (auditing) & Reflexivity. The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 23 publications receiving 149 citations. Previous affiliations of Andreas Folkers include Goethe University Frankfurt.

Daring the Truth: Foucault, Parrhesia and the Genealogy of Critique:

Abstract: This paper draws attention to Foucault’s genealogy of critique. In a series of inquiries, Foucault traced the origins and trajectories of critical practices from the ancient tradition of parrhesia to the enlightenment and the (neo)liberal critique of the state. The paper will elucidate the insights of this history and argue that Foucault’s turn to the genealogy of critique also changed the valence of his theoretical assumptions. Foucault developed a more affirmative practice of genealogy that not only discredits truth claims by tracing them back to their inglorious origins. Rather, he presents a politics of truth as a complex interaction of (governmental) power-knowledge and critique that questions the power effects of truth and rationality. This genealogy of critique contributes to current problematizations of critique by thinkers like Boltanski, Latour and Ranciere in highlighting the role of epistemological and technical critique of social rationalization and political reason.

Existential provisions: The technopolitics of public infrastructure:

Abstract: The paper provides a technopolitical analysis of public infrastructure by attending to the ways large technical systems became a political problem and how the development of infrastructure has infl...

After virtù and fortuna: Foucault on the government of economic events

Abstract: The field of governmentality studies extends the analysis of power relations beyond the state, and has thereby widened the understanding of government. However, the dominant conceptualization of governmentality as conduct of conduct and the empirical focus on subjectivating modes of power limit the potential of the governmentality approach. In this paper I want to explore the possibilities of transcending this perspective by redescribing governmentality as event management. I will therefore draw attention to a couple of remarks on the government of events in Foucault's lectures on the history of governmentality. Foucault identifies a new mode of governing events in the texts of the Physiocrats, which he contrasts with the Machiavellian paradigm of virtu and fortuna. In contrast to Machiavelli's political concept of governing the eventful by relying on the virtuosity of the prince, the Physiocrats develop a genuinely economic rationality of event management based on the assumption that markets establish a ...

Freezing time, preparing for the future: The stockpile as a temporal matter of security:

Abstract: This article analyses stockpiling as a security device that hoards time, stores power and buffers disruptions. The stockpile is a temporal matter of security by virtue of its ability to freeze time...

Fossil modernity: The materiality of acceleration, slow violence, and ecological futures:

Abstract: This article seeks to materialize social theories of modern temporalities. It proposes a tempo-material analysis of carbon resources like coal, oil, and gas to illuminate how fossil materialities b...

The archaeology of knowledge

Abstract: We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

Defining the Anthropocene

Abstract: Time is divided by geologists according to marked shifts in Earth's state. Recent global environmental changes suggest that Earth may have entered a new human-dominated geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Here we review the historical genesis of the idea and assess anthropogenic signatures in the geological record against the formal requirements for the recognition of a new epoch. The evidence suggests that of the various proposed dates two do appear to conform to the criteria to mark the beginning of the Anthropocene: 1610 and 1964. The formal establishment of an Anthropocene Epoch would mark a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and the Earth system.