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Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent -- and terrifying -- portrait of society that he was patiently compiling.
For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives"
Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time -- and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.
In the following discussion Michel Foucault and some Maoist militants attempt to identify the basic issues in a debate which had been initiated in response to the project of June 1971, to set up a people's court to judge the police. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Thought, Not Brilliantly Presented,
By doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (Paperback)
Don't get me wrong - Foucault is an absolutely brilliant thinker and modern philosopher. His methods of utilizing classical thought and analysis in the study of modern problems (at least up to the mid-20th century) are fascinating and hugely insightful. He knows the causes and effects of power in all its manifestations, and he applies this knowledge to all manner of intriguing contemporary issues such as struggles against the state, the prison system, health care, sexuality, and geopolitics. (I would be especially interested in Foucault's take on the modern American prison-industrial-political complex.)The problem with this book is in the presentation. I don't agree with other reviewers who state that this is a good summary or compendium of Foucault's works, because of its very fragmentary nature. Each of the chapters here can be considered distillations of Foucault's thoughts on key subjects. Most of the chapters are structured as interviews or dialogues but with no surrounding context. We have no explanation of who the interviewers are or from which angle they have approached Foucault's works. The chapters begin abruptly, often with the feel of an interview in progress, with no introductory explanations of the context for that portion of Foucault's efforts. Similarly, the chapters end abruptly with no wrapping up or conclusive explanations of the matter at hand. One chapter consists of two "lectures" given at different times, with zero explanation of the purpose of Foucault's visit to wherever the lecture was delivered, who the audience was, or the environment in which Foucault's presence was utilized. Therefore this book is not a good summary because it only leaves you with fragmentary details of far more vast philosophical masterpieces, with no surrounding context or supplementary information. You can get a passable introduction to Foucault's general ideas here, but for true knowledge you will have to tackle his proper dissertations. The best examples with relevance for contemporary thought are "Madness and Civilisation," "Archeology of Knowledge," and others. [~doomsdayer520~]
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Illuminating Interviews,
By mrgrieves08 (tucson) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (Paperback)
The collection of interviews contained in this volume is a great guide to anyone interested in examining the work of Michel Foucault, whose work broke new ground through his sustained examination of the interplay between the forces of pwer and the production of knowledges. For those who have previously read works such as The History of Sexuality or Discipline and Punish, this volume is sure to have many jewels that both clarifies and compliments the ideas presented in those works. Spanning an important period in Foucault's development the interviews included here deal with essential themes for anyone interested in the trajectory of Foucault's work and social concern, French philosophy or literary theory in general. Themes expanded upon includes discussions of the discrusive role of discourse(s) in shaping the parameters of power and the concommitant boundries of knowledge that such a relationship implies; the symbolic, metaphoric and noumenal implications of the body as both flesh and as a site for the inscription of various repessive regimes; or the nature and evolution of the influence of panoptical surveillance in all of its varied formulations. Part and parcel to Foucault's thinking in this area is the necessary representation of the body as both a dynamic physicality and at the same time a living palimpest onto which the ideologies of culture and society are written--sometimes forcibly, but more often through self-reproduction and latent self-repession. For those who want to know these ideologies are promulgated in panaoptical society, this book will provide many provocative answers as well as an indispensible aide to untangling the complex web of ideas that Foucault used to explicate the structure of modern society.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Looking into the web of power,
By
This review is from: Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977 (Paperback)
The relationship between knowledge, truth and power are critical elements in cross-cultural sociological study. Foucault details the relationship between these elements. The relationship between these elements relates directly to global media. If media is predominately produced in one geographic region and exported to another, power in terms of the right to representation, is automatically usurped by the production of truth, by the production of culture, production nationalistic images, by the production of media. Foucault's writings on the Archaeology of Knowledge and it's relationship to geography have a direct relation to geo-political structures and their interdependency with media forms and media audiences. Institutions, such as universities, which reinforce their own forms of knowledge, are likewise either undermined or reinforced by media forms. The relationship between these social components is never neutral, according to Foucault."Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising power." Power is much more abstract, by Foucault's definitions than any previous theorists described it. It is not necessarily a conscious, intentional application of force. Power can be the relationships between components of a society or the relationship between societies. This very subtly makes the analysis of power, more complex and yet more engaging. Media continues the construction of knowledge. Universities and other such institutions begin the process and sanction it -- provide it "an expert system" by which it is validated. However, the media reinforces this validation by replicating it in mass quantity. The media can, likewise, have the opposite effect, depending on its representation. If a given BBC program highlights the academic excellence of Harvard University, but bemoans the loss of academic excellence in al Azhar, for example. Then the media is undermining the construction of knowledge and the institution of al Azhar while simultaneously reinforcing the disequilibrium of political and economic structures surrounding al Azhar. Foucault's Power/Knowledge provides the platform from which to analyze these transformations.
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