Nancy Luxon

LuxonHeadShotNancy Luxon joined the Political Science department at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2007, after two years at the University of Chicago’s Society of Fellows. Her work in contemporary political and social theory concentrates on questions of power, authority, and truth-telling. Her essays on Foucault have been published in journals such as InquiryPolitical Theory, and more recently materiali foucaultiani. In addition to her work on Foucault, Luxon has co-organized a symposium on psychoanalysis and politics for Contemporary Political Theory. She recently completed a book, Crisis of Authority (Cambridge UP, 2013), which draws on clinical psychoanalysis and Foucault’s parrhesia to analyze the possibility for ethical judgment, frank speech, and political action in contemporary politics. Recent essays extend this analysis to the asymmetries of power in the classroom, and the anonymous speech central to the GIP’s political activism.

Luxon presently is editing a translation of Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault’s Le Désordre des familles, which includes a new postface by Arlette Farge. In conjunction, Luxon is editing a companion volume that reflects on the original project, and will include archival materials, critical reception, and essays treating the intersection of history and philosophy. Both volumes will be published by the University of Minnesota Press.