Foucaults Wende

Abstract

Michel Foucault's work and way of thinking of the late 1970s was marked by a fundamental turn, which was probably much more than the 'shift' he was speaking of at the very end of his life. To shed some light on this pivotal moment in Foucault's constantly 'shifting' style of reasoning, this paper focuses firstly on his 1978 lecture "What is critique?", and secondly presents some insights form an interview published only recently, where Foucault talks about his often-criticized journalistic trips to Iran in fall of the same year.