Johann Beukes Foucault in Foucault Iran , 1978–1979 Johann Beukes Foucault in , 1978-1979 Foucault in Iran, 1978–1979 Published by AOSIS Books, an imprint of AOSIS Publishing. AOSIS Publishing 15 Oxford Street, Durbanville 7550, Cape Town, South Africa Postnet Suite #110, Private Bag X19, Durbanville 7551, South Africa Tel: +27 21 975 2602 Website: https://www.aosis.co.za Copyright © Johann Beukes. Licensee: AOSIS (Pty) Ltd The moral right of the author has been asserted. Cover image: Original design created with the use of provided image. The sketch used on the book cover was done in 2019 by Anriët van Wyk, titled ‘Foucault in Iranian Colours’, of which J. Beukes (the author) is the copyright owner. Licence under which the digital material should be published: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Published in 2020 Impression: 1 ISBN: 978-1-928523-28-4 (print) ISBN: 978-1-928523-29-1 (ebook) ISBN: 978-1-928523-30-7 (pdf) DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2020.BK203 How to cite this work: Beukes, J., 2020, Foucault in Iran, 1978–1979, pp. i–211, AOSIS, Cape Town. Printed and bound in South Africa. Listed in OAPEN (http://www.oapen.org), DOAB (http://www.doabooks.org/) and indexed by Google Scholar. Some rights reserved. This is an open access publication. Except where otherwise noted, this work is distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), a copy of which is available at https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Enquiries outside the terms of the Creative Commons licence should be sent to the Rights Department, AOSIS, at the above address or to [email protected] The publisher accepts no responsibility for any statement made or opinion expressed in this publication. Consequently, the publishers and copyright holder will not be liable for any loss or damage sustained by any reader as a result of his or her action upon any statement or opinion in this work. Links by third-party websites are provided by AOSIS in good faith and for information only. AOSIS disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third-party website referenced in this work. Every effort has been made to protect the interest of copyright holders. Should any infringement have occurred inadvertently, the publisher apologises and undertakes to amend the omission in the event of a reprint. Foucault in Iran, 1978–1979 Johann Beukes Religious Studies domain editorial board at AOSIS Commissioning Editor Andries G. van Aarde, MA, DD, PhD, D Litt, South Africa Board Members Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, TX, United States of America Christian Danz, Dekan der Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Universität Wien and Ordentlicher Universität professor für Systematische Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Pieter G.R. de Villiers, Associate Editor, Extraordinary Professor in Biblical Spirituality, Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Musa W. Dube, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana David D. Grafton, Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations, Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT, United States of America Jens Herzer, Theologische Fakultät der Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany Jeanne Hoeft, Dean of Students and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Care, Saint Paul School of Theology, Leawood, KS, United States of America Dirk J. Human, Associate Editor, Deputy Dean and Professor of Old Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa D. Andrew Kille, Former Chair of the SBL Psychology and Bible Section, and Editor of the Bible Workbench, San Jose, CA, United States of America William R.G. Loader, Emeritus Professor, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia Isabel A. Phiri, Associate General Secretary for Public Witness and Diakonia, World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland Marcel Sarot, Emeritus Professor of Fundamental Theology, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands Corneliu C. Simut, Professor of Historical and Dogmatic Theology, Emanuel University, Oradea, Bihor, Romania Rothney S. Tshaka, Professor and Head of Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Elaine M. Wainwright, Emeritus Professor, School of Theology, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Executive Leader, Mission and Ministry, McAuley Centre, Footscray, Australia Gerald West, Associate Editor, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics in the College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa Peer review declaration The publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African ‘National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer Review of Scholarly Books’. The manuscript was subjected to a rigorous two-step peer review process prior to publication, with the identities of the reviewers not being revealed to the author(s). The reviewers were independent of the publisher and/or the authors in question. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the manuscript should be published. Where the reviewers recommended revision and/or improvements to the manuscript, the authors responded adequately to such recommendations. Research Justification In 1978, French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984), possibly the most famous philosopher in Europe at the time, went to Iran as an inexperienced political journalist, controversially reporting on the unfolding revolution, thereby seriously compromising his distinguished reputation in the European intellectual community. Given the revolution’s bloody aftermath and its violent theocratic development under Khomeinism, the book attempts to answer two key questions in particular: is Foucault’s Iranian expedition simply to be understood as a critical error in judgement, with indeed disastrous consequences for his legacy? And what precisely did Foucault hope to achieve in Iran, explicitly supporting the cause of the revolting masses and effectively isolating himself from the Western liberal tradition? With these questions as its premise, this book investigates what is often described as an ‘open nerve’ in the Foucault scholarship by (1) interpreting Foucault’s Iran writings, (2) commenting on interpretations of those writings in the scholarship over the past three decades and (3) eventually proposing that Foucault’s supposed ‘mistake’ was in fact a highly philosophical endeavour, yet misinterpreted by the majority of his contemporaries, to some extent by his most noteworthy biographers from the 1990s, as well as several eminent scholars from the more recent Foucault scholarship. The main thesis of the book is that Foucault’s involvement in the Iranian revolution does not point towards a ‘mistake’, as long as Foucault’s Iran writings are interpreted from his own theoretical framework, with specific reference to crucial Foucaultian concepts such as ‘present history’ and ‘political spirituality’. The research results are original and contribute to the specific scientific discourse in that these Foucaultian concepts are disseminated and contextualised by (1) providing a thorough overview of what happened in Iran directly before and after Foucault arrived in Tehran in September 1978; (2) analysing Foucault’s reports back to France, in a detailed fashion; (3) offering a responsible and non-polemical synopsis of the scholarly interpretations, however reluctant and scarce, on this issue over the past three decades; (4) presenting Foucault’s involvement in the Iranian revolution as a deeply philosophical (modern-critical) position that corresponded to his theoretical positions on power, death, madness, contra-Marxism, religion and ‘spirituality’ in the political sphere, Orientalism and cultural Otherness, all preceding the revolution in Iran; and (5) affording an original interpretation of the legitimacy of Foucault’s ‘presence’ (even in his eventual absence) in Iran from late 1978 to early 1979. The methods applied are literary analysis and historical inquiry. The author declares that the book represents more than a 50% substantial reworking of the author’s previously published material on this or any other topic. The author declares that every attempt has been made to avoid plagiarism by methodical referencing to all sources, either as quotations or paraphrases, as well as acknowledging sources that were used extensively, with the permission of its authors or publishers, where applicable. The author confirms that the book presents a scholarly discourse with a target audience consisting of specialists in contemporary philosophy and culture criticism, specifically in Foucault studies. Johann Beukes, Department of Philosophy, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa; and Center for the History of Philosophy and Science, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands ‘Religion is a political force.’ – Michel Foucault, Religion and Culture, 107 – ‘I am sure I am not able to provide people with what they expect. I never behave like a prophet – my books don’t tell people what to do. And people often reproach me for not doing so (and maybe they are right), and at the same time they reproach