A Companion to Foucault

A Companion to Foucault comprises a collection of essays from established and emerging scholars that represent the most extensive treatment of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s works currently available.

• Comprises a comprehensive collection of authors and topics, with both established and emerging scholars represented
• Includes chapters that survey Foucault’s major works and others that approach his work from a range of thematic angles
• Engages extensively with Foucault's recently published lecture courses from the Collège de France
• Contains the first translation of the extensive ‘Chronology’ of Foucault’s life and works written by Foucault’s life-partner Daniel Defert
• Includes a bibliography of Foucault’s shorter works in English, cross-referenced to the standard French edition Dits et Ecrits

Notes on the Editors and Contributors ix

List of Abbreviations xiv

Introduction 1

Part I Landmarks 9

1 Chronology 11
Daniel Defert

2 History of Madness 84
Colin Gordon

3 The Order of Things 104
Patrice Maniglier

4 On the Powers of the False: Foucault’s Engagements with the Arts 122
Joseph J. Tanke

5 Discipline and Punish 137
Alan D. Schrift

6 Reading The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 154
Richard A. Lynch

7 From Resistance to Government: Foucault’s Lectures 1976–1979 172
Paul Patton

8 Foucault’s Untimely Struggle 189
Paul Rabinow

Part II Knowledge and Critique 205

9 Foucault’s Normative Epistemology 207
Linda Martín Alcoff

10 Foucault and the Freudians 226
Wendy Grace

11 Foucault on Critical Agency in Painting and the Aesthetics of Existence 243
Michael Kelly

12 Foucault on Kant, Enlightenment, and Being Critical 264
Marc Djaballah

13 Making History 282
Christopher Falzon

Part III Power and Governmentality 299

14 Power, Resistance, and Freedom 301
Jon Simons

15 From Biopower to Governmentality 320
Johanna Oksala

16 Power and the Subject 337
Amy Allen

17 Power, Politics, Racism 353
Brad Elliott Stone

18 Foucault, Religion, and Pastoral Power 368
Jeremy Carrette

19 Space, Territory, Geography 384
Jeremy W. Crampton

Part IV Sexuality, Gender, and Race 401

20 Toward a Feminist “Politics of Ourselves” 403
Dianna Taylor

21 Infamous Men, Dangerous Individuals, and Violence against Women: Feminist Re-readings of Foucault 419
Chloë Taylor

22 Foucault’s Eros: For an Ethics of Living in Biopower 436
Lynne Huffer

23 The Missing Link: Homo Economicus (Reading Foucault and Bataille Together) 454
Shannon Winnubst

24 Genealogies of Race and Gender 472
David-Olivier Gougelet and Ellen K. Feder

Part V Ethics and Modernity 491

25 Foucault’s Ontology and Epistemology of Ethics 493
James D. Faubion

26 Foucault, Subjectivity, and Technologies of the Self 510
Mark G. E. Kelly

27 The Formation and Self-Transformation of the Subject in Foucault’s Ethics 526
Colin Koopman

28 Foucault, Nature, and the Environment 544
Paul Alberts

Appendix 562

Michel Foucault’s Shorter Works in English: Bibliography and Concordance 562
Richard A. Lynch

Index 593

“Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers.” (Choice, 1 November 2013)

“This Companion will be most useful for an intermediate or advanced student of Foucault. Both the 'chronology' and the bibliography of English works of Foucault are required for any serious study of his work. And the fact that most of the authors in this book have written books on different aspects of Foucault's work means that it can be taken as a proxy for a survey into the current reception of his thought in the Anglophone world.” (Metapsychology, 23 July 2013)

Christopher Falzon is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is the author of Foucault and Social Dialogue (1998), Philosophy Goes to the Movies (2002 & 2007), and co-editor, with Timothy O’Leary, of Foucault and Philosophy (2010).

Timothy O’Leary is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. He has published widely on Foucault, including Foucault and the Art of Ethics (2002) and Foucault and Fiction: The Experience Book (2009). He is also co-editor, with Christopher Falzon, of Foucault and Philosophy (2010).

Jana Sawicki is Carl Vogt Professor of Philosophy at Williams College in Western Massachusetts. She is the author of Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body (1991) and is guest editor (with Shannon Winnubst) of a special issue of Foucault Studies on Foucault and queer theory. She has written many articles on Foucault, feminism and queer theory.

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 Foucault is the most extensive and up-to-date anthology of explorations of Michel Foucault’s work currently available. Featuring essays from a wide range of established and emerging Foucault scholars, chapters address various thematic aspects of Foucault’s major works, including his recently published courses at the Collège de France. Additional essays consider Foucault’s writings on such topics as knowledge and critique; power and government; sex and gender; ethics and modernity; as well as religion, race, and the environment. Also featured is the first full translation of Daniel Defert’s ‘Chronology’ of Foucault’s life and works from Dits et Ecrits, along with a comprehensive bibliography of Foucault’s shorter works in English, cross-referenced to the standard French edition. Indispensable in its own right, A Companion to Foucault sheds important new light on one of the major twentieth-century figures in the world of ideas.

"An attractive, illuminating, and indeed indispensable volume for anyone interested in Foucault. The translation of Daniel Defert's chronology makes this a must-have for English-speaking readers of Foucault's work. In addition, the volume contains a series of incisive essays by established and younger scholars on all aspects of Foucault's thought."

—Hans Sluga, University of California, Berkeley