Introducing Foucault

Author: Christopher Horrocks
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1840469129
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
This book places Michel Foucault's work in its turbulent philosophical and political context, and critically explores his mission to expose the links between knowledge and power in the human sciences, their discourses and institutions. It explains how Foucault overturned our assumptions about the experience and perception of madness, sexuality and criminality, and the often brutal social practices of confinement, confession and discipline.

Foucault

Author: Lois McNay
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745667856
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
This work provides an introduction to the work of Michel Foucault. It offers an assessment of all of Foucault's work, including his final writings on governmentality and the self. McNay argues that the later work initiates an important shift in his intellectual concerns which alters any retrospective reading of his writings as a whole. Throughout, McNay is concerned to assess the normative and political implications of Foucault's social criticism. She goes beyond the level of many commentators to look at the values from which Foucault's work springs and reveals the implicit assumptions underlying his social critique. The author also provides an account and assessment of recent literature on Foucault, including that of Habermas and Taylor. She discusses Foucault's position in the modernity/postmodernity debate, his own ambivalence to Enlightenment thought and his place in recent developments in feminist and cultural theory.

Foucault and Politics

Author: Mark G. E. Kelly
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748676872
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Critically explains Michel Foucault's thought: the political implications of each phase of his work, how his thought has been used in the political sphere and the importance of his work for politics today.

Using Foucault's Methods

Author: Gavin Kendall
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761957171
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
`As a companion to Foucault's original texts, carefully showing what he's done and why - and how that could be applied elsewhere - it's outstanding' - www.theory.org.uk `Very much a `hands-on' tool kit of a book, scholarly but accessible.... a very useful textbook which approaches its subject in an original way' - Sociological Research Online `At last, a student-friendly guide that answers the question: "Yes, but how do you do Foucault?" Kendall and Wickham address the thorny question of how-to-Foucault in a clear, distinctive manner that stands out in the secondary literature on this important thinker' - Toby Miller, New York University Thi

The Cambridge Introduction to Michel Foucault

Author: Lisa Downing
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511650109
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
This 2008 book covers Foucault's major works in depth, and offers clear explanations of his key themes of power and discourse.

Introducing Foucault

Author: Chris Horrocks
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848317697
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Book Description
Michel Foucault's work was described at his death as 'the most important event of thought in our century'. As a philosopher, historian and political activist, he certainly left behind an enduring and influential body of work, but is this acclaim justified? "Introducing Foucault" places his work in its turbulent philosophical and political context, and critically explores his mission to expose the links between knowledge and power in the human sciences, their discourses and institutions. This book explains how Foucault overturned our assumptions about the experience and perception of madness, sexuality and criminality, and the often brutal social practices of confinement, confession and discipline. It also describes Foucault's engagement with psychiatry and clinical medicine, his political activism and the transgressive aspects of pleasure and desire that he promoted in his writing.

Foucault's Askesis

Author: Edward F. McGushin
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810122839
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Book Description
In his renowned courses at the Collège de France from 1982 to 1984, Michel Foucault devoted his lectures to meticulous readings and interpretations of the works of Plato, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, among others. In this his aim was not, Edward F. McGushin contends, to develop a new knowledge of the history of philosophy; rather, it was to let himself be transformed by the very activity of thinking. Thus, this work shows us Foucault in the last phase of his life in the act of becoming a philosopher. Here we see how his encounter with ancient philosophy allowed him to experience the practice of philosophy as, to paraphrase Nietzsche, a way of becoming who one is: the work of self-formation that the Greeks called askēsis. Through a detailed study of Foucault's last courses, McGushin demonstrates that this new way of practicing philosophical askēsis evokes Foucault's ethical resistance to modern relations of power and knowledge. In order to understand Foucault's later project, then, it is necessary to see it within the context of his earlier work. If his earlier projects represented an attempt to bring to light the relations of power and knowledge that narrowed and limited freedom, then this last project represents his effort to take back that freedom by redefining it in terms of care of the self. Foucault always stressed that modern power functions by producing individual subjects. This book shows how his excavation of ancient philosophical practices gave him the tools to counter this function-with a practice of self-formation, an askēsis.

Michel Foucault

Author: Philip Barker
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312105877
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description

Understanding Foucault

Author: Tony Schirato
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000247368
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
'An outstandingly good introduction to Foucault's work: lucid, measured, well organised, and covering this complex and in many ways heterogeneous body of work with remarkable thoroughness and ease.' - Professor John Frow, University of Melbourne Michel Foucault is now regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. He is known for his sensibility of critique and his commitment to movements for social change. His analysis of the ways our notions of truth, meaning, knowledge and reason are shaped by historical forces continues to influence thinkers around the world. Understanding Foucault offers a comprehensive introduction to Foucault's work. The authors examine Foucault's thinking in the context of the philosophies he engaged with during his career, and the events he participated in, including the student protests of 1968. A unique feature of the book is its consideration of the recently published lectures and minor works, and the authors show how these illuminate and extend our understanding of Foucault's major books. Understanding Foucault provides an accessible entree to the world of this extraordinary and challenging philosopher.

Michel Foucault

Author: Dianna Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317492056
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
Michel Foucault was one of the twentieth century's most influential and provocative thinkers. His work on freedom, subjectivity, and power is now central to thinking across an extraordinarily wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, history, education, psychology, politics, anthropology, sociology, and criminology. "Michel Foucault: Key Concepts" explores Foucault's central ideas, such as disciplinary power, biopower, bodies, spirituality, and practices of the self. Each essay focuses on a specific concept, analyzing its meaning and uses across Foucault's work, highlighting its connection to other concepts, and emphasizing its potential applications. Together, the chapters provide the main co-ordinates to map Foucault's work. But more than a guide to the work, "Michel Foucault: Key Concepts" introduces readers to Foucault's thinking, equipping them with a set of tools that can facilitate and enhance further study.