Listen to the Interview Here (mp3)

This installment of Beneath the Surface with Suzi Weissman aired on KPFK Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles last Monday, on the Iranian Revolution and French Philosopher Michel Foucault, who embraced it. Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson joined Suzi Weissman in the studio to discuss their new book, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, which has relevance for our understanding of political Islam, religious fundamentalism and the attack on science and reason.

Background On The Book:

Foucault and the Iranian Revolution, Kevin Anderson and Janet Afary, University of Chicago Press, 2005

25 years after the Iranian Revolution and twenty years after the death of Michel Foucault there is finally an account in English exploring his writings on the Iranian Revolution, what Kevin Anderson and Janet Afary see as reckless revolutionary romanticism from someone who should have known better.

This book brings us the documentary evidence of Foucault’s celebration of the Iranian revolution, much of which has never appeared in English. Included are his writings and his critics, including the “Atoussa H” controversy, as well as an astute analysis by both Afary and Anderson of Foucault’s ideas about power, sexuality, religion and his relationship to Heidegger, Freud, Nietzsche, the Enlightenment, the left and so much more.

Janet Afary – from Iran – is an Associate Professor of history and women’s studies at Purdue University and the author of The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911. She is also President of the International Society for Iranian Studies.

Kevin Anderson is Associate Professor of political science and sociology at Purdue and the author of Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism, and many other works discussed on this program, including most recently The Rosa Luxemburg Reader and Marx on Suicide.