ABSTRACT
Foucault praises the Iranian revolution as an exemplary manifestation of a collective will that could not be thought of as emanating from categories such as class struggle or economic oppression. For the revolution to be politically operative, Foucault claims, the Shi’ite opposition to the Shah had to entail a radical transformation in the subjectivity of the people. The spiritual politics of Islam enabled this change to take place, realizing the Marxist axiom that religion ostensibly constitutes the spirit of a world without spirit. This interview with Claire Brière and Pierre Blanchet, “The Spirit of a World without Spirit,” originally appeared in Brière and Blanchet, Iran: la révolution au nom de Dieu (Paris: Seuil, 1979), 227—41. The translation is by Alan Sheridan.
