The Passion of Michel FoucaultShortly before his death in 1984, Michel Foucault defended his career as one of the most controversial thinkers of our time. "The philosophical life", he declared, "is the animality of being human, renewed as a challenge, practiced as an exercise - and thrown in the face of others as a scandal". Now, for the first time, here is a book that explores the true challenge - and "scandal" - of Foucault's life and work. Based on extensive new research and a bold reinterpretation of the man and his texts, The Passion of Michel Foucault is a startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers. It chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity. Exploring the wider context of his work, it conjures up the heyday of structuralism in Paris and the electrifying chaos of the strikes in May 1968. It recounts Foucault's debates with Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida, and his encounters with Noam Chomsky and Jurgen Habermas. And in revelations as fascinating as they may be shocking to some readers, The Passion of Michel Foucault provides the first detailed account of Foucault's lifelong obsession with death, suicide, drugs, and sadomasochistic eroticism - even under the mounting threat of AIDS in the 1980s. With the subtlety and sure grasp of history, politics, and philosophy that have marked his earlier books, James Miller has written a landmark study sure to provoke debate among readers everywhere. |
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Page 188
... intellectual , and the very embodiment of France's venerable tradition of moral dissent . Within this tradition , as Foucault once summed it up , " the intellectual spoke the truth to those who had yet to see it , in the name of those ...
... intellectual , and the very embodiment of France's venerable tradition of moral dissent . Within this tradition , as Foucault once summed it up , " the intellectual spoke the truth to those who had yet to see it , in the name of those ...
Page 189
... intellectual as a kind of elusive guerrilla warrior , hard to pin down , always on the prowl . Sniping from the margins ( as he had once imagined his underground man stoking volcanos of madness ) , the intellectual " locates and marks ...
... intellectual as a kind of elusive guerrilla warrior , hard to pin down , always on the prowl . Sniping from the margins ( as he had once imagined his underground man stoking volcanos of madness ) , the intellectual " locates and marks ...
Page 308
... intellectual ought to play , " Foucault remarked in the fall of 1978 , explain- ing his interest in Iran : " to go ... intellectuals ) . And so Foucault found himself on an airplane headed for Tehran in September of 1978 , hoping to ...
... intellectual ought to play , " Foucault remarked in the fall of 1978 , explain- ing his interest in Iran : " to go ... intellectuals ) . And so Foucault found himself on an airplane headed for Tehran in September of 1978 , hoping to ...
Contents
Preface | 5 |
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR | 13 |
WAITING FOR GODOT | 37 |
Copyright | |
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