Re: foucault-digest V1 #89

David Pekerow <dpekerow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

> OK, here's a question: why has Foucault's first major work never been
> translated into English in its entirety? All we have is Richard Howard's
> abridged version, which omits about 2/3 of the original (including the
> pages which are the subject of Derrida's "Cogito and the History of
> Madness"). What's the story and is there a neww translation in the works?

This is an excellent and interesting question. We in the
English-speaking world are really in a position of being unable to fully
speak on _Folie et Deraison_ because of the fact that our version of it
has been truncated by almost two-thirds.

Arthur Still and Irving Velody have edited a collection of essays for
Routledge which rather thoroughly explore this question: _Rewriting the
History of Madness: Studies in Foucault's Histoire de la folie_ (1992).
The essays--especially the ones by Colin Gordon, Paul Bove, Robert
Castel, Dominick LaCapra, and Allan Megill among others--cover a range of
issues, from how and why the text got abridged as it did, to the changes
Foucault made in the various editions, to how they have contributed to
the construction and/or reception of Foucault both in France and the
Anglo community.

Tom Orange
London, Ontario


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