Commentary

An Apology for Philosophy by Signe Larsen

– Larsen, Signe. “An Apology for Philosophy: On the Contested Relationship between Truth and Politics.” Nordicum-Mediterraneum 9, no. 4 (2014).
The starting point of this paper is Hannah Arendt’s diagnosis that the introduction of philosophical truth into politics leads to tyrannical or totalitarian outcomes. A critique of this diagnosis is offered on the basis of Michel Foucault’s last lectures… More

Michel Foucault

– Gutting, Gary. “Michel Foucault,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Genealogy as Critique Foucault and the Problems of Modernity

– Koopman, Colin. Genealogy as Critique Foucault and the Problems of Modernity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
Viewing Foucault in the light of work by Continental and American philosophers, most notably Nietzsche, Habermas, Deleuze, Richard Rorty, Bernard Williams, and Ian Hacking, Genealogy as Critique shows that philosophical genealogy involves not only the… More

History of Madness

– Gordon, Colin. “History of Madness.” In A Companion to Foucault, edited by Christopher Falzon, Timothy O’Leary, and Jana Sawicki. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.  

A Companion to Foucault

– Falzon, Christopher, Timothy O’Leary and Jana Sawicki. A Companion to Foucault. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2013.
For close to half a century, the innovative thought of French philosopher and social critic Michel Foucault has exercised an enormous influence across a wide range of disciplines, and continues to be widely debated in intellectual circles. A Companion to… More

Foucault: His Thought, His Character

– Veyne, Paul. Foucault: His Thought, His Character. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010.      
Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne: the philosopher and the historian. Two major figures in the world of ideas, resisting all attempts at categorization. Two timeless thinkers who have long walked and fought together. In this short book Paul Veyne offers a fresh… More

Foucault on Freedom by Johanna Oksala

– Oksala, Johanna. Foucault on Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.  
Freedom and the subject were guiding themes for Michel Foucault throughout his philosophical career. Johanna Oksala identifies the different interpretations of freedom in his philosophy and examines three major divisions of it: the archaeological, the… More

Michel Foucault

– Macey, David. Michel Foucault. London: Reaktion Books, 2004.    
With Michel Foucault, Reaktion Books introduces an exciting new series that brings the work of major intellectual figures to general readers, illuminating their groundbreaking ideas through concise biographies and cogent readings. There is no better thinker… More

Foucault and His Interlocutors

– Davidson, Arnold, ed. Foucault and His Interlocutors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.        
Containing the debate between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky on epistemology and politics, this book also features the most significant essays by the most important French thinkers who influenced and were influenced by Foucault. Foucault’s teachers,… More

Foucault and the Political by Jonathan Simons

– Simons, Jonathan. Foucault and the Political. London: Routledge, 1995.  
Michel Foucault’s involvement with politics, both as an individual and a writer, has been much commented upon but until now has not been systematically reviewed. This is the first major introductory study of Michel Foucault as a political thinker. Jonathon… More

Michel Foucault: A Critical Introduction

– McNay, Lois. Michel Foucault: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Polity Press, 1994.  
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… More

The Lives of Michel Foucault: A Biography

– Macey, David. The Lives of Michel Foucault: A Biography. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.
In The Lives of Michel Foucault—written with the full cooperation of Daniel Defert, Foucault’s former lover—David Macey gives the richest account to date of Foucault’s life and work, informed as it is by the complex issues arising from his writings.… More

Michel Foucault

– Eribon, Didier. Michel Foucault. Translated by Betsy Wing. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

The Foucault Effect

– Burchell, Graham, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality: With Two Lectures by and an Interview with Michel Foucault. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.        
Based on Michel Foucault’s 1978 and 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on governmental rationalities and his 1977 interview regarding his work on imprisonment, this volume is the long-awaited sequel toPower/Knowledge. In these lectures, Foucault… More

Foucault: A Critical Reader

– Hoy, David Couzens, ed. Foucault: A Critical Reader. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1986.  

Remembering Foucault

– Holub, Robert C. “Remembering Foucault.” The German Quarterly 58, no. 2 (1985): 238–256.

Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics

– Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Paul Rabinow. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
This book, which Foucault himself has judged accurate, is the first to provide a sustained, coherent analysis of Foucault’s work as a whole. To demonstrate the sense in which Foucault’s work is beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, the authors… More