Iran archived : a defence of foucault against his detractors

Abstract EN

What would motivate a first-rank poststructuralist philosopher to engage suddenly with journalism? Generally speaking, journalism is associated with superficial intellectual productions, making alliance to it unappealing to professional philosophers.

Then, what would make a well-acknowledged French philosopher of language like Michel Foucault take his 1978-79 Iran-adventure which cost him his reputation and left him severely wounded by harsh critiques so that, from June 1979 until his untimely death in 1984, he avoided talking publically about Iran.

The liberal intellectual milieu, outside and inside France, blamed him for supporting the rise of wilayat-al-faqih (the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) in Iran.

Re-reading Foucault's Iranian Writings forty years after their first publication, this paper argues that Foucault's focal interest in Iran was totally misunderstood.

He had nothing to do with the Islamic government, rather he sought after a genuine understanding of the rudimental issues that united the majority of Iranian people.

Working methodically through Foucault's fragmentary writings on Iran as 'historico-philosophic' archives, a new understanding of their technologies, knowledge, discourse, politics, and practices is sought.

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