Books by Michel Foucault

Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to write This is not a pipe across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, the author finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction.Trade Review"This essay not only proposes a new understanding of Magritte; it also constitutes a perfect illustration and introduction to the thought of the philosopher himself, France's great wizard of paradox." * New York Review of Books *"Magritte's respectful fan letters to Mr. Foucault, which are included in this volume, the useful introduction and splendid translation by James Harkness and the handy black-and-white reproductions of many of Magritte's works combine to make this a document of extraordinary interest." * New York Times *"Foucault poses major questions about pictorial reference, and his original and novel account is worth arguing with." * Leonardo *

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Book SynopsisWhen it was first published in France in 1961 as Folie et DÃraison: Histoire de la Folie à l'Ãge Classique, few had heard of a thirty-four year old philosopher by the name of Michel Foucault. By the time an abridged English edition was published in 1967 as Madness and Civilization, Michel Foucault had shaken the intellectual world. This translation is the first English edition of the complete French texts of the first and second edition, including all prefaces and appendices, some of them unavailable in the existing French edition. History of Madness begins in the Middle Ages with vivid descriptions of the exclusion and confinement of lepers. Why, Foucault asks, when the leper houses were emptied at the end of the Middle Ages, were they turned into places of confinement for the mad? Why, within the space of several months in 1656, was one out of every hundred people in Paris confined?Shifting brilliantly from Descartes and early EnlighTrade Review'One of the major works of the twentieth century is finally available in English. This comprehensive translation finally overcomes one of the great divisions within the world of reason; an occasion to revisit Madness and Civilization as it was written.’ – Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley, USA‘Now, at last, English speaking readers can have access to the depth of scholarship that underpins Foucault’s analysis: I have no doubt that this long awaited translation will have a transformative effect on a new generation of readers.’ - Nikolas Rose, London School of Economics, UK'…we are in the presence of a principal thesis that is truly original, by a man whose personality, whose intellectual "dynamism", whose talent for exposition all qualify him for high education' - Henri Gouhier, Principal Examiner of Foucault's Thesis' ... it returns a fragment of 'nature' to history and transforms madness, something we take to be a medieval phenomenon, into a phenomenon of civilization.' - Roland Barthes'Without a shadow of a doubt, the most original, influential and controversial text in this field during the last forty years. It remains as challenging now as on first publication. Its insights have still not been fully appreciated and absorbed.' - Roy Porter'This is quite an exceptional book of very high calibre - brilliantly written, intellectually rigorous, and with a thesis that thoroughly shakes the assumptions of traditional psychiatry.' - R.D. Laing'Extraordinary…rich and insistent, and almost unreasonable in its necessary repetitions.' - Maurice Blanchot'This magnificent book…requires a mind that is capable of being in turn a historian, a philosopher, a psychologist, and a sociologist-never simply one of these…This is not a method that could be offered as an example; it is not within the reach of just anybody. Something more than talent is necessary.' - Fernand Braudel, Annales'I have just finished reading your great book…You are a real explorer.' - Gaston Bachelard, in a letter to Michel Foucault'Scarcely any philosopher working on the history of philosophy, or historian working on the history of institutions, social science or sexuality can avoid confronting the challenge of Foucault's books.' - Michael Ignatieff, Times Literary Supplement'Scarcely any philosopher working on the history of philosophy, or historian working on the history of institutions, social science or sexuality can avoid confronting the challenge of Foucault's books.' - Michael Ignatieff, Times Literary Supplement'Without a shadow of a doubt, the most original, influential and controversial text in this field during the last forty years. It remains as challenging now as on first publication. Its insights have still not been fully appreciated and absorbed.' – Roy Porter'Extraordinary…rich and insistent, and almost unreasonable in its necessary repetitions.' – Maurice BlanchotTable of ContentsForeword: History and Significance of Foucault’s History of Madness Prefaces 1. 1961 Edition 2. 1972 Edition Part 1 1. Stultifera Navis 2. The Great Confinement 3. The Correctional World 4. Experiences of Madness 5. The Insane Part 2 1. The Madman in the Garden of Species 2. The Transcendence of Delirium 3. Figures of Madness 4. Doctors and Patients Part 3 1. The Great Fear 2. The New Division 3. The Proper Use of Liberty 4. Birth of the Asylum 5. The Anthropological Circle Appendices 1. Réponse à Derrida (Michel Foucault Derrida e no kaino Paideia (Tokyo) February 1972) 2. La Folie, l'absence d'oeuvre Appendix 1 of 1972 Edition 3. Mon corps, ce papier, ce feu Appendix 2 of 1972 Edition Notes Bibliography Critical Bibliography on Foucault’s History of Madness

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWho since Weber, or perhaps even Hobbes, has done as much to show why power is such a profound, elusive and treacherous presence throughout our experience? * The Times Higher Education *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe most innovative and influential French thinker of the contemporary era -- Sudhir Hazareesingh * Guardian *Nearly 35 years after his death, Foucault remains a vital reference point, and his History of Sexuality remains required reading ... The appearance of the fourth volume is itself the most significant event in the world of Foucault scholarship in 20 years ... Essential * Los Angeles Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisIn 1980, Michel Foucault began a vast project of research on the relationship between subjectivity and truth, an examination of conscience, confession, and truth-telling that would become a crucial feature of his life-long work on the relationship between knowledge, power, and the self. The lectures published here offer one of the clearest pathways into this project, contrasting Greco-Roman techniques of the self with those of early Christian monastic culture in order to uncover, in the latter, the historical origin of many of the features that still characterize the modern subject. They are accompanied by a public discussion and debate as well as by an interview with Michael Bess, all of which took place at the University of California, Berkeley, where Foucault delivered an earlier and slightly different version of these lectures. Foucault analyzes the practices of self-examination and confession in Greco-Roman antiquity and in the first centuries of Christianity in order to highlight a radical transformation from the ancient Delphic principle of know thyself to the monastic precept of confess all of your thoughts to your spiritual guide.His aim in doing so is to retrace the genealogy of the modern subject, which is inextricably tied to the emergence of the hermeneutics of the self-the necessity to explore one's own thoughts and feelings and to confess them to a spiritual director-in early Christianity. According to Foucault, since some features of this Christian hermeneutics of the subject still determine our contemporary gnoseologic self, then the genealogy of the modern subject is both an ethical and a political enterprise, aiming to show that the self is nothing but the historical correlate of a series of technologies built into our history. Thus, from Foucault's perspective, our main problem today is not to discover what the self is, but to try to analyze and change these technologies in order to change its form.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewDiscipline and Punish is clearly a tour de force ... that rare kind of book whose methods and conclusions must be reckoned with by humanists, social scientists and political activists * The New York Times Book Review *Foucault's genius is called forth into eloquent clarity of his passions ... his best book * Washington Post *'The main line of the thesis is enormously appealing and the range of historical sources and, even more, the analytical skill with which they are made to yield up their secrets, is quite dazzling' -- Harvie Ferguson * International Journal of Criminology and Penology *

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Book Synopsis''A brilliant display of fireworks, attacking the widespread and banal notion that in the beginning sexual activity was guilt-free and delicious, being repressed and blighted only by the gloom of Victorianism'' Spectator We talk about sex more and more, but are we more liberated? The first part of Michel Foucault''s landmark account of our evolving attitudes in the west shows how the nineteenth century, far from suppressing sexuality, led to an explosion of discussion about sex as a separate sphere of life for study and examination. As a result, he argues, we are making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire rather than the increase of pleasure. ''A wealth of insights, original conceptualizations and provocative ideas'' The Times Literary SupplementTrade ReviewA wealth of insights, original conceptualizations and provocative ideas -- Peter Oborne * Daily Telegraph *A brilliant display of fireworks, attacking the widespread and banal notion that 'in the beginning' sexual activity was guilt-free and delicious, being repressed and blighted only by the gloom of Victorianism -- Jasper Griffin * Spectator *Foucault is at his polemical best. He brilliantly succeeds in turning commonplaces on their heads -- Hayden White * The Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Foucault's lectures, interviews, and occasional pieces have long been recognized by Foucault scholars to be especially valuable in their clarity and value as supplements to Foucault's major works. . . .This is an important book for Foucault studies, and, given Foucault's influence, more broadly, for the academy."--Miguel de Beistegui, University of Warwick

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Book SynopsisThree years before his death, Michel Foucault delivered a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain. These lectures provide the missing link between Foucault's early work on madness, delinquency, and sexuality and his later explorations of subjectivity in Greek and Roman antiquity. This book presents these lectures.Trade Review"Bringing together themes from two of Foucault's most important works-Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality-this book demonstrates a rethinking of the theoretical underpinnings of the former on the basis of his work on avowal in the latter. An excellent introduction lays out very clearly the background to these texts including insights into Foucault's prisoners' rights activism as well as some of his key differences with Sartre." -Kevin Anderson, University of California, Santa Barbara "A stunning set of lectures given by Foucault that focus on the history of 'avowing' one's acts and the truth of who one is. Foucault seeks to understand at what point it became important not only to confess to a crime, but to avow one's act in public. For Foucault, avowal of one's criminality before an established authority becomes a way of reestablishing that authority, and resisting avowal becomes tantamount to civil disobedience. The political implications of his analysis become especially clear in the interviews included here. This is wonderful and arresting read." -Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley "The publication of Foucault's Louvain lectures, Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling, beautifully and rigorously established and commented upon by Fabienne Brion and Bernard Harcourt, is an important event in the contemporary blossoming of Foucault studies. In no way is it redundant with the lectures at the College de France, whose series is now practically complete. With this amazingly rich inquiry, focusing on the mythical, religious, and judiciary dimensions of 'avowal,' we are offered a unique possibility to understand how Foucault's genealogy articulated the order of discourse and the power of institutions." -Etienne Balibar, Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense, author of Politics and the Other Scene "Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling is one of Foucault's most stirring inquiries into what he has named 'the hermeneutics of oneself.' These lectures stage the concept of avowal in performances as varied as Greek tragedy, criminal justice, and confessional practices; and they provide us with some of Foucault's most illuminating observations on the intimate and agonistic relations between sites of enunciation, orders of truth, and investments of power. The subject of avowal is never free of the ethical exigency and the discursive contingency of 'chang[ing] itself, transform[ing] itself, displac[ing] itself, and becom[ing] to some extent other than itself,' and Foucault's genius lies in providing us with critical and genealogical reflections on the worldly practices of avowal. Bernard Harcourt and Fabienne Brion's essential afterword provides both a frame and a ballast to the book. This is a considerable addition to the English archive of the work of Michel Foucault." -Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Between 1978 and 1983, Foucault’s work underwent a dramatic and much-discussed shift from a focus on governmentality and biopolitics to an exploration of ancient techniques and practices of the self. This new volume juxtaposes two texts that chart this transformation and situate it in relation to Foucault’s simultaneously emerging interest in reanimating Kantian notions of critique and enlightenment. This volume will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Foucault’s late work and its relevance for the practice of critical theory, broadly construed.” -- Amy Allen, Penn State University“In his lectures, Foucault often sharply sums up essential ideas about his work. These two seminal lectures, ‘What Is Critique?’ and ‘The Culture of the Self,’ are no exception. They reveal the stakes of his inquiry: philosophy has always been, since its inception, a practice of critique and a technology of the self. It is in this dual task that we must still find its meaning today.” -- Johanna Oksala, Loyola University ChicagoTable of ContentsEditors’ Note Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Daniele Lorenzini Translator’s Note Clare O’Farrell Abbreviations of Works by Michel Foucault Introduction Daniele Lorenzini and Arnold I. Davidson What Is Critique? (Lecture to the Société française de Philosophie | May 27, 1978) Michel Foucault The Culture of the Self (Lecture at the University of California, Berkeley | April 12, 1983) Michel Foucault Discussion with the Department of Philosophy Discussion with the Department of History Discussion with the Department of French Notes Index

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Book SynopsisA collection of Foucault's lectures that trace the historical formation and contemporary significance of the hermeneutics of the self.Trade Review“This is a crucial text in the development of Foucault’s ideas about technologies of the self and the question of parrēsia, especially for his contrast of Greco-Roman antiquity and early Christianity. Particularly notable is that as well as a partial record of his Toronto lectures, this volume also includes a rare record of how he conducted his seminars. Skillfully edited from surviving materials, this is a valuable addition to our understanding of Foucault’s final projects.“ -- Stuart Elden, University of Warwick“Lorenzini and Fruchaud’s stunning introduction and annotation of Foucault’s Toronto lectures and seminars offer something wholly unexpected: a new and unique portal onto Foucault’s understanding of what occupied him during his final years—not only a person’s capacity to speak the truth, but a new understanding of how the subject’s acquisition of truth is something much more, an assimilation that transforms the subject herself. The fact that this care of the self is a social act, not an individual one, appears center stage in Foucault’s analysis. This volume is a precious opening for those who have thought themselves already versed in Foucault’s work and for those newly seeking a way to think with him.” -- Ann Laura Stoler, The New School for Social Research“These newly recovered lectures and seminars constitute an important chapter in Foucault’s work on what he called ‘the history of subjectivity in the West.’ They show Foucault poring over the details of texts from classical antiquity so as to describe how the philosophical schools that flourished at the height of the Roman Empire produced distinctive practices of self-examination and self-cultivation. He thereby expands our sense of the possible relations among truth, speech, desire, and the self. The seminars in particular cast new light on Foucault’s late work on sexuality, parrēsia, and early Christianity.” -- David Halperin, University of Michigan“These lectures and seminars come at a critical juncture in Foucault’s work on the making of the subject: they bridge Foucault’s interrogation of models of self-care and self-knowledge with his final work on truth-telling. Sprawling across pedagogy, spiritual combat, friendship, and therapeutic practices, these social relationships differently mediate between inner experience and external context. Learning, unlearning, struggle, critique—all serve as different technologies used in forging the truth-telling and self-knowledge of individuals in their relation to rule. A brilliant volume that unusually highlights Foucault thinking aloud in the classroom.” -- Nancy Luxon, University of Minnesota"In Speaking the Truth about Oneself, Fruchaud and Lorenzini deliver a highly readable set of lectures Foucault delivered in English at Victoria University (Toronto) in 1982, just two years prior to his untimely passing, lectures that are pivotal in connecting the vertices of Foucault's triangle: the will to know, the obligation to confess, and care of the self. Drawing on unpublished notes, audio recordings, and student notes, which, in some cases, Foucault himself corrected, the editors have erected an important monument to Foucault's continuing relevance." * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Daniele Lorenzini, translated by Daniel Louis Wyche Note on the Reconstruction of the Text List of Abbreviations of Works by Michel Foucault Lecture I The Technology of the Self Lecture II [Second English Version] Lecture II [Recorded Version] Lecture III [First English Version] Lecture III [Second English Version] Lecture IV Lecture V The Seminar, June 1982 First Meeting Second Meeting Third Meeting Fourth Meeting Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A stunning set of lectures given by Foucault that focus on the history of 'avowing' one's acts and the truth of who one is. Foucault seeks to understand at what point it became important not only to confess to a crime, but to avow one's act in public. For Foucault, avowal of one's criminality before an established authority becomes a way of reestablishing that authority, and resisting avowal becomes tantamount to civil disobedience. The political implications of his analysis become especially clear in the interviews included here. This is wonderful and arresting read."--Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley "Reconstructed through the patient labours of Fabienne Brion and Bernard Harcourt, . . . [the lectures] are now available in a scrupulous English translation."--Times Literary Supplement "Fabienne Brion and Bernard Harcourt are to be congratulated for their invaluable work."--Berfrois "The Louvain lectures show us an aspect of Foucault's work that is often neglected in an attempt to focus on his commitment to historicizing: that for histories, even genealogical histories, to be constructed, one must not only trace the changes themselves but also that which is changed and therefore remains, in its changes, continuous."--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "These lectures are unique and valuable in that, consistent with the direction of Foucault's work at the time, they expand his explorations of the various modalities of truth and subjectivity into the criminal justice context. Additionally, Foucault's genealogical work in these lectures situates these specific criminal justice practices within a more far-reaching history than that with which we are familiar. . . . A valuable contribution to both Foucaultian and criminological scholarship."-- (05/22/2015) "Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling is one of Foucault's most stirring inquiries into what he has named 'the hermeneutics of oneself.' These lectures stage the concept of avowal in performances as varied as Greek tragedy, criminal justice, and confessional practices; and they provide us with some of Foucault's most illuminating observations on the intimate and agonistic relations between sites of enunciation, orders of truth, and investments of power. The subject of avowal is never free of the ethical exigency and the discursive contingency of 'chang[ing] itself, transform[ing] itself, displac[ing] itself, and becom[ing] to some extent other than itself, ' and Foucault's genius lies in providing us with critical and genealogical reflections on the worldly practices of avowal. Bernard Harcourt and Fabienne Brion's essential afterword provides both a frame and a ballast to the book. This is a considerable addition to the English archive of the work of Michel Foucault."--Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University "The publication of Foucault's Louvain lectures, Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling, beautifully and rigorously established and commented upon by Fabienne Brion and Bernard Harcourt, is an important event in the contemporary blossoming of Foucault studies. In no way is it redundant with the lectures at the College de France, whose series is now practically complete. With this amazingly rich inquiry, focusing on the mythical, religious, and judiciary dimensions of 'avowal, ' we are offered a unique possibility to understand how Foucault's genealogy articulated the order of discourse and the power of institutions."--Etienne Balibar, Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense, author of Politics and the Other SceneTable of ContentsEditor’s Preface Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt INAUGURAL LECTURE April 2, 1981 Dr. Leuret, avowal, and the therapeutic operation. — The supposed effects of truth-telling on oneself and of knowledge of the self. — Characteristics of avowal. — The spread of avowal within Western Christian societies: individuals bound to their truth and obligated in their relationships to others through the truth told. — A historical-political problem: how the individual binds himself to his truth and to the power that exerts itself upon him. — A historical-philosophical problem: how individuals are bound by forms of veridiction. — A counterpoint to positivism: a critical philosophy of veridictions. — The problem of “who is being judged” in penal institutions. — Penal practices and technologies of government. — Governing through truth. FIRST LECTURE April 22, 1981 A political and institutional ethnology of truthful speech. — Truth-telling and speaking justice. — Scope of the study. — Veridiction and jurisdiction in Homer’s Iliad. — The competition between Menelaus and Antilochus. — The object of Antilochus’s avowal. —Justice and agon; agon and truth. —The chariot race and the challenge of the oath, two liturgies of truth, two games designed to represent justly the truth of their respective strengths. — A ritual of commemoration. — Veridiction and jurisdiction in Hesiod’s Works and Days. — Dikazein and krinein. — The oath of the accusers and the co-jurors in dikazein: a game of two parties, the criteria being the social status of the adversaries. — The oath of the judge in krinein: a game of three parties, the criteria being dikaion. — The social weight of adversaries and “the reality of things”: dikaion and alethes. SECOND LECTURE April 28, 1981 The representation of law in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. — A judicial paradigm. — Essential elements of the tragedy. — Two recognitions, three alethurgies. — Veridiction and prophecy. — Veridiction and tyranny. — Veridiction and witnessing avowal. — Grandeur of the parties, freedom to speak, and the effect of truth in the inquiry. — Recognition by the chorus, conditions for recognition by Oedipus. — From truth-telling to saying “I.” — A procedure that conforms to nomos, a veridiction that repeats the word of the prophet and completes that of the man of techne technes. THIRD LECTURE April 29, 1981 Hermeneutics of the text and hermeneutics of the self in early Christianity. — Veridiction of the self in pagan antiquity. — The Pythagorean examination of conscience: purification of self and mnemotechnics. — The Stoic examination of conscience: the government of the self and the remembering of codes. — The Stoic expositio animae: medicine of passions and degrees of liberty. — Penance in early Christianity. — The problem of reintegration. — Penance as a status that manifests a particular state. — The meanings of exomologesis. — A life in the form of avowal, an avowal in the form of life. — A ritual of supplication. — Beyond the medical or judicial, the model of the martyr. — Veridiction of the self and mortification of the self. — From the public manifestation of the self as sinner to the verbalization of the self: temptation and illusion. FOURTH LECTURE May 6, 1981 Practice of veridiction in monastic institutions of the fourth and fifth centuries: the Apophthegmata patrum and the writings of Cassian. — Monasticism: between the life of penance and philosophical existence. — Characteristics of the direction of conscience in ancient culture. — Characteristics of the direction of conscience in monasticism: an obedience that is continuous, formal, and self-referential; humility, patience, and submission; the inversion of the relationship to verbalization. — Characteristics of the examination of conscience in monasticism: from action to thought. — Mobility of thought and illusion. — Discrimen and discretio: avowal and the origin of thought. — Veridiction of the self, hermeneutics of thought, and the rights-bearing subject. FIFTH LECTURE May 13, 1981 Characteristics of exagoreusis in the fourth and fifth centuries. — Renunciation of the self. — Truth of the text and truth of the self. — The separation and adjustment of the hermeneutics of the text and the hermeneutics of the self in Protestantism. — Illusion, evidence, and meaning (Descartes and Locke). — Illusion of the self about the self and the unconscious (Schopenhauer and Freud). — Juridification of avowal in the ecclesiastical tradition from the fourth to the seventh centuries. — Co-penetration of exagoreusis and exomologesis in the first monastic and lay communities. — Characteristics and origins of fixed penance: the monastic model and the model of Germanic law. — Sacramentalization and institutionalization of obligatory confession in the thirteenth century. — Juridification of the relationship between man and God. — Forms and meanings of avowal in the confessio oris. SIXTH LECTURE May 20, 1981 Juridification in ecclesiastical and political institutions. — From God as judge to a state of justice: sovereignty and truth. — Avowal, torture, and inquisitorial tests of truth. — Avowal, torture, and legal proofs. — Avowal, sovereign law, sovereign conscience, and punitive engagement. — Auto-veridiction, evidence, and penal dramaturgy. — Hetero-veridiction, examination, and legal psychiatry. — Relating the act to its author: the question of criminal subjectivity in the nineteenth century. — Monomania and the constitution of crime as psychiatric object. — Degeneration and the creation of the criminal as object for social defense. — From responsibility to dangerousness, from the rights-bearing subject to the criminal individual. — The question of criminal subjectivity in the twentieth century. — Hermeneutics of the subject and the meaning of crime for the criminal. — Accident, probability, and indices of criminal risk. — Veridiction of the subject and the breach in the contemporary penal system. Appendixes Michel Foucault Interview with André Berten May 7, 1981 Michel Foucault Interview with Christian Panier and Pierre Watté May 14, 1981 Michel Foucault Interview with Jean François and John De Wit May 22, 1981 The Louvain Lectures in Context Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt Acknowledgments to the French Edition Acknowledgments to the English Edition Index of Notions and Concepts Index of Proper Names

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Lest these familiar Foucauldian themes leave readers feeling there is nothing new here, Judith Revel’s nuanced, judicious introduction highlights 'four differences' in apparent contrast to Foucault as he has been received." * Choice *“Reverberations from the forceful impact of Foucault’s thought were first felt by Anglophone readers in the mid-1960s almost entirely through his writings on madness and literature. This new volume gathers several previously unpublished or untranslated texts from this decade on these very themes. Readers will be delighted to revisit or perhaps even indulge for the very first time those ideas and analyses with which Foucault forever shook the future of philosophy." -- Colin Koopman, University of Oregon“The essays collected in this book are as urgent today as they were fifty years ago: provocative, generative, and timely. Each is a bridge connecting Foucault’s histories of the modern subject to different fields of inquiry, from literature to structuralism to the philosophy of J. L. Austin. Anyone interested in literary theory, early modern history, or continental philosophy and its relation to the analytic tradition will find these essays by turns revelatory and inspiring.” -- Richard Neer, University of ChicagoTable of ContentsA Note on the Text Introduction by Judith Revel Lectures and Writings on Madness, Language, and Literature 1. Madness and Civilization 2. Madness and Civilization (Presentation Given at the Club Tahar Haddad, Tunis, April 1967) 3. Madness and Society 4. Literature and Madness (Madness in Baroque Theater and the Theater of Artaud) 5. Literature and Madness (Madness in the Work of Raymond Roussel) 6. Phenomenological Experience: Experience in Bataille 7. The New Methods of Literary Analysis 8. Literary Analysis 9. Structuralism and Literary Analysis (Presentation Given at the Club Tahar Haddad, Tunis, February 4, 1967) 10. [The Extralinguistic and Literature] 11. Literary Analysis and Structuralism 12. Bouvard and Pécuchet: The Two Temptations 13. The Search for the Absolute Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“This is a crucial text in the development of Foucault’s ideas about technologies of the self and the question of parrēsia, especially for his contrast of Greco-Roman antiquity and early Christianity. Particularly notable is that as well as a partial record of his Toronto lectures, this volume also includes a rare record of how he conducted his seminars. Skillfully edited from surviving materials, this is a valuable addition to our understanding of Foucault’s final projects.“ -- Stuart Elden, University of Warwick“Lorenzini and Fruchaud’s stunning introduction and annotation of Foucault’s Toronto lectures and seminars offer something wholly unexpected: a new and unique portal onto Foucault’s understanding of what occupied him during his final years—not only a person’s capacity to speak the truth, but a new understanding of how the subject’s acquisition of truth is something much more, an assimilation that transforms the subject herself. The fact that this care of the self is a social act, not an individual one, appears center stage in Foucault’s analysis. This volume is a precious opening for those who have thought themselves already versed in Foucault’s work and for those newly seeking a way to think with him.” -- Ann Laura Stoler, The New School for Social Research“These newly recovered lectures and seminars constitute an important chapter in Foucault’s work on what he called ‘the history of subjectivity in the West.’ They show Foucault poring over the details of texts from classical antiquity so as to describe how the philosophical schools that flourished at the height of the Roman Empire produced distinctive practices of self-examination and self-cultivation. He thereby expands our sense of the possible relations among truth, speech, desire, and the self. The seminars in particular cast new light on Foucault’s late work on sexuality, parrēsia, and early Christianity.” -- David Halperin, University of Michigan“These lectures and seminars come at a critical juncture in Foucault’s work on the making of the subject: they bridge Foucault’s interrogation of models of self-care and self-knowledge with his final work on truth-telling. Sprawling across pedagogy, spiritual combat, friendship, and therapeutic practices, these social relationships differently mediate between inner experience and external context. Learning, unlearning, struggle, critique—all serve as different technologies used in forging the truth-telling and self-knowledge of individuals in their relation to rule. A brilliant volume that unusually highlights Foucault thinking aloud in the classroom.” -- Nancy Luxon, University of Minnesota"In Speaking the Truth about Oneself, Fruchaud and Lorenzini deliver a highly readable set of lectures Foucault delivered in English at Victoria University (Toronto) in 1982, just two years prior to his untimely passing, lectures that are pivotal in connecting the vertices of Foucault's triangle: the will to know, the obligation to confess, and care of the self. Drawing on unpublished notes, audio recordings, and student notes, which, in some cases, Foucault himself corrected, the editors have erected an important monument to Foucault's continuing relevance." * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Daniele Lorenzini, translated by Daniel Louis Wyche Note on the Reconstruction of the Text List of Abbreviations of Works by Michel Foucault Lecture I The Technology of the Self Lecture II [Second English Version] Lecture II [Recorded Version] Lecture III [First English Version] Lecture III [Second English Version] Lecture IV Lecture V The Seminar, June 1982 First Meeting Second Meeting Third Meeting Fourth Meeting Notes Index

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Book SynopsisMichel Foucault’s interest in the history of sexuality began as early as the 1960s, when he taught two courses on the subject. These lectures offer crucial insight into the development of Foucault’s thought yet have remained unpublished until recently. This book presents Foucault’s lectures on sexuality for the first time in English.Trade ReviewWhat comes to my mind when traversing these extraordinary lectures is a variant of the famous motto: 'same is another.' Foucault claimed that he was writing texts to depart from himself. And he succeeded. But in doing so he delved deeper and deeper into his own truth. And into ours. -- Étienne Balibar, author of Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political PhilosophyThis volume of Foucault’s early lectures on sexuality offers readers a chance to follow the ebbs and flows of theoretical thought as ideas take shape under very specific historical conditions. With a brilliant introduction by Bernard Harcourt guiding the way, the lectures gathered here provide deep insight into the braided structures of power, knowledge and desire that continue to regulate bodies. At the same time, this deep archive provides opportunities for linking to other moments of rebellion, opposition and, even, abolition. -- Jack Halberstam, author of Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire and Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Guide to Gender VariationFinally published in English, these 1964 and 1969 early lectures of Foucault, given at a time when homosexuality was still considered a clinical pathology and a crime and when the notion of gender was not yet a leverage of political emancipation for feminist and trans movements, allow us to grasp the archeology of contemporary queer and trans critical languages. We discover a young Foucault thinking sexuality anew, using Sade, Bataille, Restif de la Bretonne, or Fourier, and fighting with Freud, Marx, Melanie Klein, Marcuse, or Wilhelm Reich in order to pierce an academic, political, and discursive field dominated by epistemic violence against sexual minorities. A necessary, controversial, and fascinating reading to understand not only Foucault’s critical project but also the way in which different discourses on desire, pleasure, and sexuality shape our present. -- Paul B. Preciado, author of Countersexual ManifestoThese lectures offer a really important insight into Foucault’s work in the 1960s on the question of sexuality—a topic on which his more famous works come from the 1970s and 1980s. This volume shows how he proposed a study of scientific knowledge about sexuality from biology to psychology, with some explicit engagement with figures who are only discussed obliquely elsewhere. Graham Burchell is the most important translator of Foucault’s work into English, and Anglophone readers remain much in his debt. -- Stuart Elden, author of The Early FoucaultThis volume will be of interest to all scholars working on sexuality across many disciplines, particularly those whose study is informed by Foucauldian analyses of power, knowledge, and desire. * Modern Language Review *Will be invaluable to readers interested in any aspect of Foucault's intellectual development. Highly recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsSeries Foreword, by Bernard E. HarcourtForeword to the French Edition, by François EwaldRules for Editing the Texts, by Claude-Olivier DoronTranslator’s Note, by Graham BurchellAbbreviationsPart I. Sexuality: Lectures at the University of Clermont-Ferrand (1964)Lecture 1. IntroductionLecture 2. The Scientific Knowledge of SexualityLecture 3. Sexual BehaviorLecture 4. The PerversionsLecture 5. Infantile SexualityPart II. The Discourse of Sexuality: Lectures at the University of Vincennes (1969)Lecture 1. The Discourse of SexualityLecture 2. The Transformations of the Eighteenth CenturyAppendix to Lecture 2Lecture 3. The Discourse of Sexuality (3)Appendix to Lecture 3Lecture 4. Legal Forms of Marriage Up to the Civil CodeLecture 5. Epistemologization of SexualityLecture 6. The Biology of SexualityLecture 7. Sexual UtopiaAppendix to Lecture 7Appendix. Extract from Green Notebook no. 8, September 1969Course Context, by Claude-Olivier Doron Sexuality: Course at the University of Clermont-Ferrand (1964) The Discourse of Sexuality: Course at the University of Vincennes (1969)Detailed ContentsIndex of NotionsIndex of Names

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Book SynopsisMichel Foucault’s interest in the history of sexuality began as early as the 1960s, when he taught two courses on the subject. These lectures offer crucial insight into the development of Foucault’s thought yet have remained unpublished until recently. This book presents Foucault’s lectures on sexuality for the first time in English.Trade ReviewWhat comes to my mind when traversing these extraordinary lectures is a variant of the famous motto: 'same is another.' Foucault claimed that he was writing texts to depart from himself. And he succeeded. But in doing so he delved deeper and deeper into his own truth. And into ours. -- Étienne Balibar, author of Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political PhilosophyThis volume of Foucault’s early lectures on sexuality offers readers a chance to follow the ebbs and flows of theoretical thought as ideas take shape under very specific historical conditions. With a brilliant introduction by Bernard Harcourt guiding the way, the lectures gathered here provide deep insight into the braided structures of power, knowledge and desire that continue to regulate bodies. At the same time, this deep archive provides opportunities for linking to other moments of rebellion, opposition and, even, abolition. -- Jack Halberstam, author of Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire and Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Guide to Gender VariationFinally published in English, these 1964 and 1969 early lectures of Foucault, given at a time when homosexuality was still considered a clinical pathology and a crime and when the notion of gender was not yet a leverage of political emancipation for feminist and trans movements, allow us to grasp the archeology of contemporary queer and trans critical languages. We discover a young Foucault thinking sexuality anew, using Sade, Bataille, Restif de la Bretonne, or Fourier, and fighting with Freud, Marx, Melanie Klein, Marcuse, or Wilhelm Reich in order to pierce an academic, political, and discursive field dominated by epistemic violence against sexual minorities. A necessary, controversial, and fascinating reading to understand not only Foucault’s critical project but also the way in which different discourses on desire, pleasure, and sexuality shape our present. -- Paul B. Preciado, author of Countersexual ManifestoThese lectures offer a really important insight into Foucault’s work in the 1960s on the question of sexuality—a topic on which his more famous works come from the 1970s and 1980s. This volume shows how he proposed a study of scientific knowledge about sexuality from biology to psychology, with some explicit engagement with figures who are only discussed obliquely elsewhere. Graham Burchell is the most important translator of Foucault’s work into English, and Anglophone readers remain much in his debt. -- Stuart Elden, author of The Early FoucaultThis volume will be of interest to all scholars working on sexuality across many disciplines, particularly those whose study is informed by Foucauldian analyses of power, knowledge, and desire. * Modern Language Review *Will be invaluable to readers interested in any aspect of Foucault's intellectual development. Highly recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsSeries Foreword, by Bernard E. HarcourtForeword to the French Edition, by François EwaldRules for Editing the Texts, by Claude-Olivier DoronTranslator’s Note, by Graham BurchellAbbreviationsPart I. Sexuality: Lectures at the University of Clermont-Ferrand (1964)Lecture 1. IntroductionLecture 2. The Scientific Knowledge of SexualityLecture 3. Sexual BehaviorLecture 4. The PerversionsLecture 5. Infantile SexualityPart II. The Discourse of Sexuality: Lectures at the University of Vincennes (1969)Lecture 1. The Discourse of SexualityLecture 2. The Transformations of the Eighteenth CenturyAppendix to Lecture 2Lecture 3. The Discourse of Sexuality (3)Appendix to Lecture 3Lecture 4. Legal Forms of Marriage Up to the Civil CodeLecture 5. Epistemologization of SexualityLecture 6. The Biology of SexualityLecture 7. Sexual UtopiaAppendix to Lecture 7Appendix. Extract from Green Notebook no. 8, September 1969Course Context, by Claude-Olivier Doron Sexuality: Course at the University of Clermont-Ferrand (1964) The Discourse of Sexuality: Course at the University of Vincennes (1969)Detailed ContentsIndex of NotionsIndex of Names

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Book Synopsis''No brief survey can do justice to the richness, complexity and detail of Foucault''s discussion'' New York Review of BooksThe second volume of Michel Foucault''s pioneering analysis of the changing nature of desire explores how sexuality was perceived in classical Greek culture.From the stranger byways of Greek medicine (with its advice on the healthiest season for sex, as well as exercise and diet) to the role of women, The Use of Pleasure is full of extraordinary insights into the differences - and the continuities - between the Ancient, Christian and Modern worlds, showing how sex became a moral issue in the west. ''Required reading for those who cling to stereotyped ideas about our difference from the Greeks in terms of pagan license versus Christian austerity'' Los Angeles Times Book ReviewTrade ReviewNo brief survey can do justice to the richness, complexity, and detail of Foucault's discussion ... subtle and penetrating * New York Review of Books *'A man of the same era and Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard, he was, in his writings and his life, the most accessible of them all, as well as the most beguiling' -- Richard Gott * Guardian *Always provocative, needling, disconcerting * Washington Times *

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Book Synopsis''Bristles with provocative insights into the tangled liaisons of sex and self'' Times Higher EducationIn the third volume of his acclaimed examination of sexuality in modern Western society, Foucault investigates the Golden Age of Rome to reveal a decisive break from the classical Greek version of sexual pleasure. Exploring the moral reflections of philosophers and physicians of the era, he identifies a growing anxiety over sexual activity and its consequences. At the core of this transformation Foucault found the principles of the ''care of the self'': the belief that the self is an object of knowledge to be cultivated over time, and the implications this has for ethics and behaviour.''Magnificent ... Foucault''s great achievement is to illuminate an entire and cohesive body of thought. It is brilliantly done'' Daily TelegraphTrade Review'A magnificent treasure-trove ... Foucault's great achievement is to illuminate an entire and cohesive body of thought. It is brilliantly done' * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe most innovative and influential French thinker of the contemporary era -- Sudhir Hazareesingh * Guardian *Nearly 35 years after his death, Foucault remains a vital reference point, and his History of Sexuality remains required reading ... The appearance of the fourth volume is itself the most significant event in the world of Foucault scholarship in 20 years ... Essential * Los Angeles Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA fabulous journey through thirty years of political and intellectual ferment that shows that Foucault's work is as alive and contemporary as ever -- Didier Eribon

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Book SynopsisMichel Foucalt (1926-84) was one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century and the most prominent thinker in post-war France. Foucault's work influenced disciplines as diverse as history, sociology, philosophy, sociology and literary criticism.

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Book SynopsisMichel Foucault was one of the most influential philosophical thinkers in the contemporary world, someone whose work has affected the teaching of half a dozen disciplines ranging from literary criticism to the history of criminology. But of his many books, not one offers a satisfactory introduction to the entire complex body of his work. The Foucault Reader was commissioned precisely to serve that purpose.The Reader contains selections from each area of Foucault's work as well as a wealth of previously unpublished writings, including important material written especially for this volume, the preface to the long-awaited second volume of The History of Sexuality, and interviews with Foucault himself, in the course of which he discussed his philosophy at first hand and with unprecedented candor.This philosophy comprises an astonishing intellectual enterprise: a minute and ongoing investigation of the nature of power in society. Foucault's analyses of this power as it manif

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Book SynopsisWith an eye for the sensual bloom of young schoolgirls, and the torrid style of the romantic novels of her day, Herculine Barbin tells the story of her life as a hermaphrodite. Herculine was designated female at birth. A pious girl in a Catholic orphanage, a bewildered adolescent enchanted by the ripening bodies of her classmates, a passionate lover of another schoolmistress, she is suddenly reclassified as a man. Alone and desolate, he commits suicide at the age of thirty in a miserable attic in Paris.Here, in an erotic diary, is one lost voice from our sexual past. Provocative, articulate, eerily prescient as she imagines her corpse under the probing instruments of scientists, Herculine brings a disturbing perspective to our own notions of sexuality. Michel Foucault, who discovered these memoirs in the archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene, presents them with the graphic medical descriptions of Herculine's body before and after her death. In a striking contrast,

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Book SynopsisIn this sequel to The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, the brilliantly original French thinker who died in 1984 gives an analysis of how the ancient Greeks perceived sexuality.Throughout The Use of Pleasure Foucault analyzes an irresistible array of ancient Greek texts on eroticism as he tries to answer basic questions: How in the West did sexual experience become a moral issue? And why were other appetites of the body, such as hunger, and collective concerns, such as civic duty, not subjected to the numberless rules and regulations and judgments that have defined, if not confined, sexual behavior?

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Book SynopsisIn this classic account of madness, Michel Foucault shows once and for all why he is one of the most distinguished European philosophers since the end of World War II. Madness and Civilization,Foucault's first book and his finest accomplishment, will change the way in which you think about society. Evoking shock, pity and fascination, it might also make you question the way you think about yourself.Trade Review'Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization has been, without a shadow of a doubt, the most original, influential, and controversial text in this field during the last forty years. It remains as challenging now as on first publication.' -Roy PorterTable of ContentsIntroduction by David Cooper, Preface 1."Stultifera Navis" 2.The Great Confinement 3.The Insane 4.Passion and Delirium 5. Aspects of Madness 6.Doctors and Patients 7.The Great Fear 8.The New Division 9.The Birth of the Asylum, Conclusion, Notes

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Book SynopsisPossibly one of the most significant, yet most overlooked, works of the twentieth century, it was The Order of Things that established Foucault's reputation as an intellectual giant.Trade Review'Foucault's most important work.' - Hayden V. White'One is left with a sense of real and original force' - George Steiner'The work numbers among those outward signs of culture the trained eye should find on prominent display in every private library. Have you read it? One's social and intellectual standing depends on the response.' - Michel de CerteauTable of ContentsPublishers Note, Forward to the English Edition, PrefacePart I:1.Las Meninas2.The Prose of the World: I The Four Similitudes, II Signatures, III The Limits of the World, IV the Writing of Things, V The Being of Language 3.Representing: I Don Quixote, II Order, III The Representation of the Sign, IV Duplicated Representation, V The Imagination of Resemblance, VI Mathesis and 'Taxinoma'4. Speaking: I Criticism and Commentary, II General Grammar, III The Theory of the Verb, IV Articulation, V Designation, VI Derivation, VII The Quadrilateral Language5. Classifying: I What the Historians say, II Natural History, III Structure, IV Character, V Continuity and Catastrophe, VI Monsters and Fossils, VII The Discourse of Nature6. Exchanging: I The Analysis of wealth, II Money and Prices, III Mercantilism, IV The Pledge and the Price, V The Creation of Value, VI Utility, VII General Table, VIII Desire and RepresentationPart 27. The Limits of Representation: I The Age of History, II The Measure of Labour, III The Organic Structure of Beings, IV Word Inflection, V Ideology and Criticism, VI Objective Synthesis8. Labour, life, Language: I The New Empiricities, II Ricardo, III Cuvier, IV Bopp, V Language Became Object9. Man and His Doubles: I The return of Language, II The Place of the King, III The Analytic of Finitude, IV The Empirical and the Transcendental, V The 'Cogito' and the Unthought, VI The Retreat and the Return of the Origin, VII Discourse and Man's Being, VIII The Anthropological Sleep10. The Human Sciences: I The Three Faces of Knowledge, II The Form of the Human Sciences, III The Three Models, IV History, V Psychoanalysis and Ethnology, VI In Conclusion

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Book SynopsisIn this remarkable book Michel Foucault, one of the most influential thinkers of recent times, calls us to look critically at specific historical events in order to uncover new layers of significance. In doing so, he challenges our assumptions not only about history, but also about the nature of language and reason, even of truth. The scope of such an undertaking is vast, but by means of his uniquely engaging narrative style, Foucault's penetrating gaze is skilfully able to confront our own. After reading his words our perceptions are never quite the same again.Trade Review'The Birth of the Clinic repeatedly allows us to glimpse the face, the personal and distinctive features of a philosopher-historian whose declared aim is nevertheless to get rid of the subject and subjectivity, to disappear in his own discourse and to leave the way open for a formulation of the anonymous rules which govern human knowledge and behavior.' - New York Review of Books'Foucault has re-launched philosophy in France single-handed.' - The Times Literary Supplement'Michel Foucault is a very brilliant writer, he has a remarkable angle of vision, a highly disciplined and coherent one, that informs his work to such a high degree as to make the work sui generis original.' - Edward W. SaidTable of Contents1. Spaces and Classes 2. A Political Consciousness 3. The Free Field 4. The Old Age of the Clinic 5. The Lesson of the Hospitals 6. Signs and Cases 7. Seeing and Knowing 8. Open Up a Few Corpses 9. The Visible Invisible 10. Crisis in Fevers

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Book SynopsisWhy we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality—from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century.Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

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Book SynopsisA brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre. In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

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Book SynopsisWith vast erudition, Foucault cuts across disciplines and reaches back into seventeenth century to show how classical systems of knowledge, which linked all of nature within a great chain of being and analogies between the stars in the heavens and the features in a human face, gave way to the modern sciences of biology, philology, and political economy. The result is nothing less than an archaeology of the sciences that unearths old patterns of meaning and reveals the shocking arbitrariness of our received truths.In the work that established him as the most important French thinker since Sartre, Michel Foucault offers startling evidence that man—man as a subject of scientific knowledge—is at best a recent invention, the result of a fundamental mutation in our culture.

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Peasant Status and the Meanings of Serfdom 2. Peasants, Property, and Payments 3. Peasants, Religion, and the Church 4. Peasants, New Towns, and Communes 5. Peasant Agency Conclusion

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Book SynopsisSpeech Begins after Death is a transcript of critic Claude Bonnefoy's interview with Michel Foucault in which he reflects on his approach to the written word throughout his life, from his school days to his discovery of the pleasure of writing. Never before published in English, this is one of Foucault's most personal statements about his life and writing.Table of ContentsContentsEditor’s NoteIntroduction: Foucault and Audiography Philippe ArtièresInterview between Michel Foucault and Claude Bonnefoy, 1968Chronologies of Michel Foucault and Claude Bonnefoy

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Book SynopsisThis book brings together previously unpublished transcripts of oral presentations in which Michel Foucault speaks at length about literature and its links to some of his principal themes: madness, language and criticism, and truth and desire. Table of ContentsContentsEditors’ Introduction Note on the Text Language, Madness, and Desire Language and Madness The Silence of the Mad Mad Language Literature and Language Session One: What Is Literature? Session Two: What Is the Language of Literature? Lectures on Sade Session One: Why Did Sade Write? Session Two: Theoretical Discourses and Erotic Scenes Editors’ Notes

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