I hesitate to offer any suggestions, as my own experience is somewhat
limited. I was lucky with publishing my PhD thesis. I had a contract before
I submitted (with a publisher I was already working on another project for),
and ended up effectively submitting a first draft of a book as a PhD.
I wonder if you might think about how to present the material somewhat
differently. I don't know how the material actually sits in the book - what
proportion for the different parts, whether they can be separated. But there
might be a method type book in there - using Foucault's work in relation to
the different lines of analysis you suggest. You mention how this is
applicable in different ways yourself. The work on 'grounded' methodology,
qualitative data, etc. sounds quite challenging to Foucault studies.
Bridging the Anglo-American divide is also a powerful issue. Potentially you
could utilise some illustrations from the Tourette work, and maybe other
topics, but - and again this is speculative - perhaps that more specific
work might be best presented to specialist academic journals? You don't
mention if you have any of this work in journals.
This would have the advantage of developing and enriching the Foucault
toolbox (as you say), and showing the way in which it can be applied. I can
imagine you won't like the idea of breaking apart your work in this way. But
I wonder if publishers see a book on a thinker and a topic and think that
purchasers would have to be interested in the thinker AND the topic to buy
it, rather than one or the other. There can be exceptions - Sarah
Nettleton's book on Foucault and dentistry is the most obvious i can think
of.
Good luck anyway
Stuart
Dr Stuart Elden
Lecturer in Political Geography
Department of Geography
University of Durham
South Road
Durham
DH1 3LE, UK
www.stuartelden.info
limited. I was lucky with publishing my PhD thesis. I had a contract before
I submitted (with a publisher I was already working on another project for),
and ended up effectively submitting a first draft of a book as a PhD.
I wonder if you might think about how to present the material somewhat
differently. I don't know how the material actually sits in the book - what
proportion for the different parts, whether they can be separated. But there
might be a method type book in there - using Foucault's work in relation to
the different lines of analysis you suggest. You mention how this is
applicable in different ways yourself. The work on 'grounded' methodology,
qualitative data, etc. sounds quite challenging to Foucault studies.
Bridging the Anglo-American divide is also a powerful issue. Potentially you
could utilise some illustrations from the Tourette work, and maybe other
topics, but - and again this is speculative - perhaps that more specific
work might be best presented to specialist academic journals? You don't
mention if you have any of this work in journals.
This would have the advantage of developing and enriching the Foucault
toolbox (as you say), and showing the way in which it can be applied. I can
imagine you won't like the idea of breaking apart your work in this way. But
I wonder if publishers see a book on a thinker and a topic and think that
purchasers would have to be interested in the thinker AND the topic to buy
it, rather than one or the other. There can be exceptions - Sarah
Nettleton's book on Foucault and dentistry is the most obvious i can think
of.
Good luck anyway
Stuart
Dr Stuart Elden
Lecturer in Political Geography
Department of Geography
University of Durham
South Road
Durham
DH1 3LE, UK
www.stuartelden.info