Fellow functionaries of the Foucaudian Academic Apparatus:
Greetings. I've been ghosting for several months, but I've been a
faithful follower of this list for years. I don't think there has been
much serious discussion lately on this new publication: ethics truth
and subjectivity, ed. Rabinow. This whole thing is very confusing.
Subtitled "the essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984, this volume I
includes stuff that is either so common (some things already widely
published in anthologies edited by rabinow himself) or so obscure that
one doubts their relevance to anything (course outlines from the
College de France) (no shopping lists or answering machine messages,
thank god).
The Volume - edited down from the French "Dits et Ecrits", the french
anthology of all of Foucault's work - consists of two parts. part I
has a lot of course outlines from various periods of his work. As far
as I could tell, nothing too ground breaking here. Part II has a lot
of material on his later ethical writings (hence the title of this
volume), which is more interesting, particularly his interviews with
the gay press. SOme of this stuff is, to me, brand spankin' new, and
of decisive import, though it may be available elsewhere. Then there
are a lot of things thrown in which are quite the staple for Foucault
scholars: what is enlightnemnt, into to hist of sex II, stuff like
that. rabinow's introduction itself is excellent.
Has anyone's boat been radically shaken from all of this? For me, I'm
just this period of Foucault's work, and, having more of a background
in 18th and 19th century european history, and none at all in
classical philosophy, it looks like a new world to me. What do other
people think? Is this really a kinder gentler Foucault?
sb
Greetings. I've been ghosting for several months, but I've been a
faithful follower of this list for years. I don't think there has been
much serious discussion lately on this new publication: ethics truth
and subjectivity, ed. Rabinow. This whole thing is very confusing.
Subtitled "the essential works of Foucault, 1954-1984, this volume I
includes stuff that is either so common (some things already widely
published in anthologies edited by rabinow himself) or so obscure that
one doubts their relevance to anything (course outlines from the
College de France) (no shopping lists or answering machine messages,
thank god).
The Volume - edited down from the French "Dits et Ecrits", the french
anthology of all of Foucault's work - consists of two parts. part I
has a lot of course outlines from various periods of his work. As far
as I could tell, nothing too ground breaking here. Part II has a lot
of material on his later ethical writings (hence the title of this
volume), which is more interesting, particularly his interviews with
the gay press. SOme of this stuff is, to me, brand spankin' new, and
of decisive import, though it may be available elsewhere. Then there
are a lot of things thrown in which are quite the staple for Foucault
scholars: what is enlightnemnt, into to hist of sex II, stuff like
that. rabinow's introduction itself is excellent.
Has anyone's boat been radically shaken from all of this? For me, I'm
just this period of Foucault's work, and, having more of a background
in 18th and 19th century european history, and none at all in
classical philosophy, it looks like a new world to me. What do other
people think? Is this really a kinder gentler Foucault?
sb