Topics

Books

I, Pierre Riviere, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister, and My Brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century

– Foucault, Michel. I, Pierre Riviere, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister, and My Brother: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century. Translated by Frank Jellinek. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.  
To free his father and himself from his mother’s tyranny, Pierre Rivière decided to kill her. On June 3,1835, he went inside his small Normandy house with a pruning hook and cut to… More

Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel

– Foucault, Michel. Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel. Translated by Charles Ruas. New York: Doubleday, 1986.
Death and the Labyrinth is unique, being Foucault’s only work on literature. For Foucault this was “by far the book I wrote most easily and with the greatest pleasure.”… More

This Is Not a Pipe

– Foucault, Michel. This Is Not a Pipe. Translated and edited by James Harkness. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
René Magritte’s famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant… More

Mental Illness and Psychology

– Foucault, Michel. Mental Illness and Psychology. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
Foucault’s Mental Illness and Psychology (originally titled Maladie mentale et Personnalité; then, Maladie Mentale et Psychologie, 1954; English translation, 1958) was Foucault’s first… More

Madness and Civilization

– Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Vintage, 1988.
Foucault dated his own scholarly career from the publication of Madness and Civilization. Madness and Civilization (Folie et Déraison: histoire de la folie à l’âge classique, 1961;… More

The Order of Things

– Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
The Order of Things (Les Mots et les Choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines; French publication 1966; English translation, 1970) became a bestseller in France. In it, Foucault… More

The Birth of the Clinic

– Foucault, Michel. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
In the eighteenth century, medicine underwent a mutation. For the first time, medical knowledge took on a precision that had formerly belonged only to mathematics. The body became something… More

The Archaeology of Knowledge

– Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge: and the Discourse on Language. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1982.
The Archaeology of Knowledge (L’Archéologie du savoir, 1969; English translation, 1972) is a supplement to The Order of Things. In it, Foucault focuses on the human sciences as… More

Discipline and Punish

– Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2nd edition. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Discipline and Punish, which begins with a famously gruesome description of the execution of the would-be assassin of King Louis XV, Damiens, summarizes one of Foucault’s most well-known… More

The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction

– Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
In the first volume of the History of Sexuality: An Introduction (Histoire de la sexualité: La volonté de savoir), published in 1976 (English translation, 1978), Foucault explores and… More

The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure

– Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Originally, Foucault announced The History of Sexuality as a six-volume study, with one volume to appear each year, but the poor reception of the first volume caused a crisis for Foucault,… More

The History of Sexuality, Volume 3: The Care of the Self

– Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 3: The Care of the Self. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
The Care of the Self is the third and possibly final volume of Michel Foucault’s widely acclaimed examination of “the experience of sexuality in Western society.” Foucault takes… More

Essays

Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977

– Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Translated by Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper; edited by Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.
Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in… More

Sexuality and Solitude

– Foucault, Michel, and Richard Sennett. “Sexuality and Solitude.” London Review of Books 3, no. 9 (May 21, 1981).

The Foucault Reader

– Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.  
Michel Foucault was one of the most influential thinkers in the contemporary world, someone whose work has affected the teaching of half a dozen disciplines ranging from literary criticism… More

Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault

– Foucault, Michel. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Edited by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988.  
Shortly before his death in 1984, Michel Foucault spoke of an idea for a new book on “technologies of the self.” He described it as “composed of different papers about the… More

Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. 1)

– Foucault, Michel. Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. 1). Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: New Press, 1998.
Ethics (edited by Paul Rabinow) contains the summaries of Foucault’s renowned courses at the Collège de France, paired with key writings and interviews on friendship, sexuality, and… More

Power (The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. 3)

– Foucault, Michel. Power (The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Vol. 3). Translated Robert Hurley, edited James D. Faubion. New York: New Press, 1999.  
Power, the third and final volume of The New Press’s “Essential Works of Foucault” series, draws together Foucault’s contributions to what he saw as the still-underdeveloped… More

Fearless Speech

– Foucault, Michel. Fearless Speech. Edited by Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2001.  
Comprised of six lectures delivered, in English, by Michel Foucault while teaching at Berkeley in the Fall of 1983, Fearless Speech was edited by Joseph Pearson and published in 2001.… More

Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974–1975

– Foucault, Michel. Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974–1975. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Valerio Marchetti and Antonella Salomoni. New York: Picador, 2003.
The lectures comprising Abnormal begin by examining the role of psychiatry in modern criminal justice, and its method of categorizing individuals who “resemble their crime before they… More

Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976

– Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976. Translated by David Macey, edited by Mauro Bertani and Allesandro Fontana. New York: Picador, 2003.
From 1971 until 1984 at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures ranging freely and conversationally over the range of his research. In Society Must Be Defended,… More

The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982

– Foucault, Michel. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981–1982. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Frédéric Gros. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
The Hermeneutics of the Subject is the third volume in the collection of Michel Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France, where faculty give public lectures on any topic of their… More

Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1973–1974

– Foucault, Michel. Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1973–1974. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Jacques Lagrange. New York: Picador, 2008.
In Psychiatric Power, the fourth volume in the collection of his groundbreaking lectures at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault addresses and expands upon the ideas in his seminal… More

Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978

– Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Michel Senellart. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Marking a major development in Foucault’s thinking, this book takes as its starting point the notion of “biopower,” studying the foundations of this new technology of… More

The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979

– Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Michel Senellart. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
The Birth of Biopolitics continues to pursue the themes of Foucault’s lectures from Security, Territory, Population. Having shown how eighteenth-century political economy marks the… More

The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983

– Foucault, Michel. The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Frédéric Gros. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
This lecture, given by Michel Foucault at the Collège de France, launches an inquiry into the notion of parresia and continues his rereading of ancient philosophy. Through the study of… More

The Courage of Truth (the Government of Self and Others II): Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983–1984

– Foucault, Michel. The Courage of Truth (the Government of Self and Others II): Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983–1984. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Frédéric Gros. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
The Courage of the Truth is the last course that Michel Foucault delivered at the Collège de France. Here, he continues the theme of the previous year’s lectures in exploring the… More

Lectures on the Will to Know: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1970–1971, and Oedipal Knowledge

– Foucault, Michel. Lectures on the Will to Know: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1970–1971, and Oedipal Knowledge. Translated by Graham Burchell, edited by Daniel Defert. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Lectures on the Will to Know reminds us that Michel Foucault’s work only ever had one object: truth. Here, he builds on his earlier work, Discipline and Punish, to explore the… More

Commentary

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… More

Remembering Foucault

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

Foucault: A Critical Reader

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

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… More

Michel Foucault

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

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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… 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… More

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… 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.  

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… More

Michel Foucault

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

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… More

Multimedia

Michel Foucault Audio Archive Home

– Foucault, Michel. “Michel Foucault Audio Archive Home.” Library, University of California, Berkeley. 1976-1984.
A host site for audio lectures and discussions in English and French.

Foucault: The Disappearance of the Human

– Roderick, Rick. “Foucault: The Disappearance of the Human.” Part 6 of an 8-part video lecture series, The Self under Siege: Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (1993).

Foucault across the Disciplines

– “Foucault across the Disciplines.” National Conference on Foucault’s thought at the University of California, Santa Cruz, March 1–2, 2008.
[Audio files]

Key Thinkers: Michel Foucault Parts 1 and 2

– Frow, John. “Key Thinkers: Michel Foucault Parts 1 and 2.” Key Thinkers series, University of Melbourne, 2009.  
Two lectures delivered at the University of Melbourne as part of the Key Thinkers series, 2009

Foucault on Power and Punishment

– Alwan, Wes, Mark Linsenmayer, Katie McIntyre, and Seth Paskin. “Episode 49: Foucault on Power and Punishment.” The Partially Examined Life. Published January 11, 2012.  

Introduction to Foucault

– Thorsby, Mark. “Introduction to Foucault.” November 19, 2013.
[Online presentation on “Governmentality” and “The Body of the Condemned,” Discipline and Punish]

Foucault, Subjectivity and Truth

– Elden, Stuart. “Foucault, Subjectivity and Truth.” Talk delivered at the Centre for Critical Theory, University of Nottingham, November 12, 2014.

Michel Foucault

– Taylor, Laurie, Stephen Shapiro, Vikki Bell, and Lois McNay. “Michel Foucault.” Thinking Allowed. January 1, 2015.

Foucault, Info

– "Foucault, Info."
[Free Access to a large selection of excerpted texts; links; and some commentary]

The Foucault Society

– The Foucault Society.
[A comprehensive site for bibliographies, biographies, conferences and events, and commentary]

Foucault

– Protevi, John. “Foucault.” Materials for Foucault Courses, Department of French Studies, Louisiana State University.
[Material for courses on Foucault]