Well, the book Birth of the Clinic is a fair place to start, and what most
people find daunting (the medical terminology) would presumably be less of a
problem for you. You might find 'The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth
Century' useful, it's in the Foucault Reader (ed. Paul Rabinow). Foucault
gave three extremely interesting lectures in Rio in 1974, which were
originally published in Portuguese (I think) but which appear in Dits et
ecrits vol III. I think at least one of them is in vol III of the 'Essential
Works' (the volume on Power). I don't have that volume so someone else may
be able to help confirm this. I heard Nicolas Rose was having another one
translated for the Economy and Society journal but i doubt that's out yet.
There is a dedicated collection on Foucault and medicine, Petersen, Alan &
Bunton, Robin (eds.), Foucault, Health and Medicine, London: Routledge,
1997, but i didn't think it was that good. Delaporte, François, "The History
of Medicine According to Foucault", in Jan Goldstein (ed.), Foucault and the
Writing of History, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994 is better if i recall. Jones,
Colin & Porter, Roy (eds.), Reassessing Foucault ? Power, Medicine and the
Body, Routledge: London, 1994 is certainly useful. And on that period of
Foucault's work, Gutting, Gary, Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific
Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 is excellent. There's
also a discussion of Birth of the Clinic and the Rio lectures in my book,
Mapping the Present, due in August this year.
Hope that's useful
Stuart
people find daunting (the medical terminology) would presumably be less of a
problem for you. You might find 'The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth
Century' useful, it's in the Foucault Reader (ed. Paul Rabinow). Foucault
gave three extremely interesting lectures in Rio in 1974, which were
originally published in Portuguese (I think) but which appear in Dits et
ecrits vol III. I think at least one of them is in vol III of the 'Essential
Works' (the volume on Power). I don't have that volume so someone else may
be able to help confirm this. I heard Nicolas Rose was having another one
translated for the Economy and Society journal but i doubt that's out yet.
There is a dedicated collection on Foucault and medicine, Petersen, Alan &
Bunton, Robin (eds.), Foucault, Health and Medicine, London: Routledge,
1997, but i didn't think it was that good. Delaporte, François, "The History
of Medicine According to Foucault", in Jan Goldstein (ed.), Foucault and the
Writing of History, Oxford: Blackwell, 1994 is better if i recall. Jones,
Colin & Porter, Roy (eds.), Reassessing Foucault ? Power, Medicine and the
Body, Routledge: London, 1994 is certainly useful. And on that period of
Foucault's work, Gutting, Gary, Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific
Reason, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 is excellent. There's
also a discussion of Birth of the Clinic and the Rio lectures in my book,
Mapping the Present, due in August this year.
Hope that's useful
Stuart