Dear Jean --
Everyone has her/his Foucault, and thus her/his favorite texts. My advice
would be
(1) Figure out how, if at all, the members of your committee approach the
subject; you can't afford to ignore their biases. You may go beyond their
biases, but you better be prepared to discuss their "Foucault."
(2) I tend to agree with Kevin's advice -- I think that the Power/Knowledge
book is very good as an introduction, and that Discipline and Punish and
History of Sexuality (Volume I) are the most interesting and accessible
work. Language, Counter-Memory and Practice is also useful, but not to the
same extent. But this is my bias against the earlier works (Madness and
Civilization, Archeology of Knowledge) in which questions of power are
considerably more remote, and the very last texts (the later volumes of
History of Sexuality) which are more concerned with issues of ethics.
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Everyone has her/his Foucault, and thus her/his favorite texts. My advice
would be
(1) Figure out how, if at all, the members of your committee approach the
subject; you can't afford to ignore their biases. You may go beyond their
biases, but you better be prepared to discuss their "Foucault."
(2) I tend to agree with Kevin's advice -- I think that the Power/Knowledge
book is very good as an introduction, and that Discipline and Punish and
History of Sexuality (Volume I) are the most interesting and accessible
work. Language, Counter-Memory and Practice is also useful, but not to the
same extent. But this is my bias against the earlier works (Madness and
Civilization, Archeology of Knowledge) in which questions of power are
considerably more remote, and the very last texts (the later volumes of
History of Sexuality) which are more concerned with issues of ethics.
------------------