Okay, so this is mainly speculative and hopefully the group presentation on Vermeulen will help clarify my thoughts on the subject of biopower. I was interested in the section of the article in which Vermeulen quotes Foucault saying, "'that there is a fundamental, essential kinship between tragedy and right...just as there is probably a kinship between the novel and the problem of the norm' (175)" (Vermeulen 388). I took Vermeulen's thoughts here to be in reference to reading the novel as a global or national literary device. So to say that the ideal "global/national" novel presents itself readers with a view of society and the world around them, which include the problems their society is facing. For example in Ghostwritten, as unethically as his organizations motives are for creating a racial pure world, Quasar does point out the problems current society is facing in relation to technology. At one point he says, "The usual red-and-white TV transmitter, was broadcasting the government's subliminal command frequencies" (Mitchell 4). Quasar's cult has taught him that technology is used by the government to spread lies to the population. He also believes that this is what makes the world outside of his cultist group "unclean."
So while, most people in current society do not share these beliefs, it does however point to a negative reputation of technology and its consuming influence on humanity today. I believe in this way, that Vermeulen's reference to Foucault can relate to the problems in our current society but addressing them through novels. Since novels reflect the conditions of the worlds in which they are written.
A methodological note here: if you really want to interrogate and perhaps apply how Foucault is positing the novel in relation to social norms, you really need to read Foucault himself, rather than relying upon Vermeulen's out-takes.
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