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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 77
Page 118
... philosopher Michel Serres pointed out the work's sim- ilarities with Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy . And Roland Barthes , already an important critic , applauded Foucault's " structural " approach to history ( though Barthes had to ...
... philosopher Michel Serres pointed out the work's sim- ilarities with Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy . And Roland Barthes , already an important critic , applauded Foucault's " structural " approach to history ( though Barthes had to ...
Page 249
... philosopher , after a pause- " ' something else ' " besides . " That was a problem . For how might LSD affect this elusive " something else " ? French philosophers often talked in the most daring of terms about experimentation and ...
... philosopher , after a pause- " ' something else ' " besides . " That was a problem . For how might LSD affect this elusive " something else " ? French philosophers often talked in the most daring of terms about experimentation and ...
Page 367
... philosopher feels a frisson of curiosity as he passes by the place where a woman had been " sequestered " -Foucault seems to have shared with no one else . Whether the young philosopher ever felt such a frisson must remain in doubt ...
... philosopher feels a frisson of curiosity as he passes by the place where a woman had been " sequestered " -Foucault seems to have shared with no one else . Whether the young philosopher ever felt such a frisson must remain in doubt ...
Contents
Preface | 5 |
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR | 13 |
WAITING FOR GODOT | 37 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
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