Introduction: Foucault and the United States

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Putting Foucault to use in American studies involves a variety of practices, from what may be described as “selective engagement” to in-depth absorption in the philosopher’s complex, evolving thought.The topic of Foucault’s legacy for American studies was one that we first explored at the 2019 annual meeting of the French Association for American Studies (AFEA) in Toulouse. Élodie Edwards-Grossi had just co-organized a one-day conference entitled “Towards a History of Louisiana State Institutions Along Class, Racial and Gender Lines” at Tulane University, in New Orleans—an event that inevitably summoned Foucault’s ghost—and Aurélie Godet had just reviewed an edited collection on Foucault’s seminal visit to the Münsterlingen psychiatric asylum in 1954 (complete with a pre-Lenten “mad parade”) for the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures.Encouraging feedback from panel participants and attendees convinced us to turn these exchanges into a thematic dossier for Transatlantica and to reach out to other potential contributors. The result, which was almost three years in the making, is a set of four articles by scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds (history, cultural studies, visual studies), along with an interview. Taken together (and beyond their formal and thematic differences), these contributions testify to the multiple ways academics studying the United States are “putting Foucault to work.” They also bring to light the cross-pollination of French philosophy and US activist movements and countercultures.