Philosophy
Book Details

A Foucault Primer

Discourse, Power and the Subject

Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace

Concentrates on some of the central concepts in Foucault's voluminous and complex writings.

Opinion

'This is a brief and well-written book, intended as an introduction to Foucault's work for (mostly) an undergraduate audience.' (Heather Worth, Women's Studies Journal)

'As an introductory account designed for the non-specialist reader, this book stands out by its insistence upon the interconnection between Foucault's successive reconceptualisations of discourse, power and subjectivity.' (Paul Patton, University of Sydney)

About this Title

Who are we today? That deceptively simple question continued to be asked by the French historian and philosopher, Michel Foucault, who for the last three decades has had a profound influence on English-speaking scholars in the humanities and social sciences.

A Foucault Primer is designed for undergraduates and others who feel the need of some assistance when coming to grips with Foucault's voluminous and complex writings. Instead of dealing with them chronologically, however, this book concentrates on some of their central concepts, primarily Foucault's rethinking of the categories of discourse, power and the subject (or subjection).

Foucault's writings contribute collectively to what he himself calls 'an ontology of the present'. His historical research was always geared towards showing how things could have been (and still could be) otherwise. This is especially the case with respect to the production of human subjects.

Table of Contents

Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Foucault's Counter-history of Ideas, General Background: discourse, power and knowledge, Marxism, History of ideas, Structural linguistics, Critique; 2. Discourse, Non-Foucauldian concepts of discourse, Foucault's rethinking of discourse, Discourse and politics; 3. Power, An ontology of the present, A disciplined society, Scientia sexualis, Analysis; 4. The Subject, the sexual subject in ancient Greece, Sex and the self from Plato to Plutarch, Gender and sexuality: continuing problems; Bibliography; Index

About the Author

Alec McHoul is the author of a book on reading and ethnomethodology called Telling How Texts Talk and co-author of Writing Pynchon: Strategies in Fictional Analysis. He teaches at Murdoch University where Wendy Grace is engaged on postgraduate work of Foucault.

978-0-522-84577-8