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 33
... perhaps , the hermetic impulse behind his own lifelong interest in forms of experience often called " mad , " " sick , " or " criminal . " In pondering the ambiguity of Foucault's possible " limit- experience " with AIDS in San ...
... perhaps , the hermetic impulse behind his own lifelong interest in forms of experience often called " mad , " " sick , " or " criminal . " In pondering the ambiguity of Foucault's possible " limit- experience " with AIDS in San ...
Page 85
... Perhaps to dream of death was mad . Perhaps the experience of the void eluded every effort to communicate it . Perhaps the nihilism palpable in the death camps could find in a work that embraced the void no adequate response . Perhaps ...
... Perhaps to dream of death was mad . Perhaps the experience of the void eluded every effort to communicate it . Perhaps the nihilism palpable in the death camps could find in a work that embraced the void no adequate response . Perhaps ...
Page 122
... perhaps the poet on stage that night in 1947 would not have acted like a drowning man . Perhaps he would not have experienced his own most inescapable impulses as cruel , violent , insanely self - destructive . Perhaps he would no ...
... perhaps the poet on stage that night in 1947 would not have acted like a drowning man . Perhaps he would not have experienced his own most inescapable impulses as cruel , violent , insanely self - destructive . Perhaps he would no ...
Contents
Preface | 5 |
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR | 13 |
WAITING FOR GODOT | 37 |
Copyright | |
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André Glucksmann appeared Artaud Barraqué Bataille become Bersani Binswanger Blanchot body CF int Collège de France critical critique cruelty culture daimon Daniel Defert death Discipline and Punish discourse dream Edmund White Eribon erotic essay experience explained fantasies French Friedrich Nietzsche Georges Bataille Gilles Deleuze Glucksmann Guibert Habermas Heidegger Heidegger's Hervé Guibert History of Sexuality homosexual human Ibid idea imagination intellectual interview Jean Kant Kant's kind labyrinth language later Le Nouvel Observateur lectures liberation limit-experience Madness and Civilization Maoist March Maurice Blanchot Michel Foucault modern moral Nietzsche's novel one's Order of Things Paris perhaps philosopher Pierre pleasure political possible practice prison published question reason recalls remarked revealing revolution Robbe-Grillet Roussel Sade Sartre Sartre's seemed social society struggle suicide thinker thought torture trans transgression truth Wade writing wrote York