Hamartia: Foucault And Iran 1978–1979 (2: Scholarship and significance)

Against the backdrop of the introduction and analysis of Foucault’s Iran writings in the fi rst of two articles, this second article attempts to contribute to an understanding of Foucault’s involvement in the revolution in Iran (1978–1979) by 1) employing the concluding suggestions in the fi rst article as premises for 2) an analysis of three explicit contributions (Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson, Ian Almond, and Danny Postel) that have been made recently on this traditionally neglected issue in Foucault scholarship, 3) and, via the notion of an ‘ethics of Self-discomfort’, arguing for an acknowledgement of the philosophical signifi cance of Foucault’s involvement in Iran and his writings from that period