Foucault : the birth of power / Stuart Elden.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elden, Stuart, 1971- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984.

Foucault, Michel.

Power (Philosophy)--History.

Power (Philosophy).

History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 232 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA, USA : Polity Press, 2017.

Summary:

Michel Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge was published in March 1969, Discipline and Punish in February 1975. Although only six years apart, the difference in tone is stark: the former is a methodological treatise, the latter a call to arms. What accounts for the radical shift in Foucault's approach? Foucault's time in Tunisia had been a political awakening for him, and he returned to a France much changed by the turmoil of 1968. He taught at the experimental University of Vincennes and then moved to a prestigious position at the College de France. He quickly became involved in activist work concerning prisons and health issues such as abortion rights, and in his seminars he built research teams to conduct collaborative work, often around issues related to his lectures and activism. Foucault: The Birth of Power makes use of a range of archival material, including newly available documents at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, to provide a detailed intellectual history of Foucault as writer, researcher, lecturer and activist. Through a careful reconstruction of Foucault's work and preoccupations, Elden shows that, while Discipline and Punish may be the major published output of this period, it rests on a much wider range of concerns and projects. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : out of the 1960s

Measure : Greece, Nietzsche, Oedipus

Inquiry : revolt, ordeal, proof

Examination : punishment, war, economy

Madness : power, psychiatry and the asylum

Discipline : surveillance, punishment and the prison

Illness : medicine, disease and health

Conclusion : towards Foucault's last decade.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 190-218) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Elden, Stuart, 1971- Foucault

ISBN:

9781509507252

1509507256

9781509507269

1509507264

OCLC:

957056820