Mauricio Pelegrini é brasileiro, bacharel em Ciências Sociais pela Universidade de São Paulo (USP), mestre e doutorando em História Cultural pela Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Autor de “Michel Foucault e a Revolução Iraniana” (Intermeios, São Paulo, 2019) e de diversos artigos sobre Foucault, principalmente sobre os temas do neoliberalismo, aleturgias, feminismo e Irã.
The article begins with the account of the public exchange of messages between Michel Foucault and an anonymous Iranian reader, pseudonym Atoussa H. I intend to show how the controversy between the two was the main target of a allegedly feminist critique of the Iranian reports that Foucault wrote in the years 1978-1979. From a post-structuralist definition of gender, it is clear that such criticism essentializes the definitions of the concept of woman, being totally opposed to the foucauldian analytic of power. Both Foucault and the Iranian feminist movement were opposed to the Shah’s dictatorship, and both were also strong critics of the theocratic dictatorship installed after by Ayatollah Khomeini. It is my contention that the insurrectional movement analyzed by Foucault in Iran was multiple and fragmented, not conniving with the persecution of human rights that occurred after the Revolution.
References
AFARY, Janet; ANDERSON, Kevin. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: gender and the seductions of Islamism. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005.
ATOUSSA H. « Une iranienne écrit ». En Le Nouvel Observateur, nº 730, 6 au 12 novembre 1978.
BUTLER, Judith. Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge, New York, 2007.
FOUCAULT, Michel. Dits et Écrits III: 1976-1979. Gallimard, Paris, 1994.
FOUCAULT, Michel. Dits et Écrits IV: 1980-1984. Gallimard, Paris, 1994.
GHAMARI-TABRIZI, Behrooz. Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2016.
KEDDIE, Nikki R. Modern Iran: roots and results of revolution. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006
KEDDIE, Nikki R. Women in the Middle East: past and present. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2007.
KIAN-THIÉBAUT, Azadeh. « Les mouvements d’émancipation des femmes en Iran ». En GUBIN, Eliane et al. (Coord.). Le siècle des féminismes. Les Éditions de l’Atelier/Éditions Ouvrières, Paris, 2004, 385-397.
McLAREN, Margaret A. « Foucault and feminism: power, resistance, freedom ». En TAYLOR, Dianna; VINTGES, Karen (Coords.). Feminism and the final Foucault. University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 2004.
PELEGRINI, Mauricio. Michel Foucault e a Revolução Iraniana. Intermeios, São Paulo, 2019.
RAGO, Margareth. « E se Nietzsche tivesse razão? A categoria do gênero no pós-estruturalismo». En SCAVONE, Lucila (Coord.). Tecnologias Reprodutivas: gênero e ciência. Ed. Unesp, São Paulo, 1996.
RAGO, Margareth. « Foucault, a subjetividade e as heterotopias feministas ». En SCAVONE, Lucila; ALVAREZ, Marcos César; MISKOLCI, Richard (Coords.). O legado de Foucault. Ed. Unesp, São Paulo, 2006.
SCOTT, Joan W. « Gender: a useful category of historical analysis ». En The American Historical Review, v. 91, n. 5, 1053-1075.
