Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 15:33:08 -0700
From: Gary Yuen <gyuen-AT-best.com>
Subject: Re: Secondary Sources


I also very much liked Miller's biography _The Passion of Michel Foucault_.
I haven't had a chance to read the other two biographies.  The third one (I
forget the author) states on the back that it's the third and probably the
last.  That's quite a statement but intriguing nonetheless.

And Blanchot's essay 'Michel Foucault as I imagine him' is also worth reading.

Gary


At 04:01 PM 9/22/97 -0400, John Ransom wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Sep 1997 pfl661-AT-airmail.net wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I have been a lurker on this list for about a month. I would like to ask
>> for some information from the list members.
>> 
>> I have the opportunity to take a class this semester on a single
>> theorist (sociology).  I would like to spend the semester reading
>> Foucault.  
>> 
>> What secondary sources would you read if you were starting out? I'm
>> looking for something that "frames" Foucault's work. I have a copy of
>> Cultural Analysis by Wuthnow.  Any suggestions would be greatly
>> apreciated.
>> 
>> Phyllis Flott
>> University of North Texas
>> 
>
>It depends what period of F's work you want to focus on. An absolutely
>fantastic book on Foucault's "middle period" (_Order of Things_,
>_Archaeology of Knowledge_) is Gary Gutting's _Michel Foucault's
>Archaeology of Scientific Reason_.
>
>For the 70s and 80s, you can't go wrong with James Bernauer's _Michel
>Foucault's Force of Flight_. Modesty prevents me from mentioning my book
>(_Foucault's Discipline_).
>
>If you're interested in the broader framing, perhaps something you're
>looking for is one of the biographies on him. Didier Eribon's _Michel
>Foucault_ provides a good account of F's life and career, though the
>biography format keeps him from going deep theoretically. 
>
>A more critical kind of framing is provided by Luc Ferry and Alain Renaut
>in _French Philosophy of the Sixties_. They see Foucault and all other
>French (intellectual) diseases as so much politically irresponsible,
>anti-democratic nonsense. 
>
>Some of the best work that criticizes Foucault is still some of the
>oldest:  see the articles by Walzer, Taylor, and Habermas in _Foucault: A
>Critical Reader_, ed. David Couzens Hoy. 
>
>A short book by a respected thinker who surveys all of Foucault's periods
>is _Foucault: An Introduction_ by Hinrich Fink-Eitel.
>
>Good luck,
>
>--John
>
>
>