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For Beginners
Foucault for Beginners
Michel Foucault's work has profoundly affected the teaching of such diverse disciplines as literary criticism, criminology, and gender studies. Arguing that definitions of abnormal behavior are culturally constructed, Foucault explored the unfair divisions between those who meet and those who deviate from social norms. In Foucault For Beginners, the reader will discover Foucault’s deeply visual sense of scenes such as ritual public executions.
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews
March 2, 2016
You think I'm kidding, right? A comic about Foucault, one of the most notoriously difficult (and one of the most important) thinkers of the twentieth century? But Fillingham's comic is a serious guide to some of the central ideas from Foucault's range of works, a kind of Cliff's Notes, sure, but really insightful and entertaining. And there are a lot of such comics guides to Great Thinkers out there, some better than others, but this is a good one. I teach Grand Theory AND comics, so it's a nice intersection of my interests. But if you want to know about Foucault, or are reading Madness and Civilization or Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, don't be shy about getting a little help along the way.
August 22, 2019
I came entirely unprepared for this book on Foucault, who I only had vague ideas surrounding. Due to never challenging myself with his texts which I believed to be incredibly dense and way out of my intellectual league, I picked up this delightful comic style book. The condensing of big ideas into chapters allowed this pleb (me) to dabble in a lot of areas from gender studies to ‘abnormal’ behaviours. Basically I recommend if you’re a novice...
April 10, 2021
Just freshening up :)
May 25, 2018
This is a four star review for introducing me to a controversial subject. Not too many people smile when you mention Foucault and so far this is as far as I have dipped into him outside of some post-modernist discussions and podcasts.
So, we come to a man known for pain, discipline, gender studies, and literary criticism, but the average person on the street cannot really explain him. This book seemingly does a decent job at least making you aware.
What I found most interesting in this was the discussion of discipline and Foucault's principles of it:
1. Spatialization
2. Minute control of activity
3. Repetitive exercises
4. Detailed hierarchies
5. Normalizing Judgements
All of this brought together in the architectural innovation of the panopticon.
To understand this you will need to read, but think of "armies, schools, hospitals, madhouses, poorhouses, and factories." Within that framework you might figure it out on your own.
Discourse is also very important.
Anyway, this makes me curious to fall down the Foucault rabbit hole. What I find could change the rating on this review. Of course it might change me as well.
So, we come to a man known for pain, discipline, gender studies, and literary criticism, but the average person on the street cannot really explain him. This book seemingly does a decent job at least making you aware.
What I found most interesting in this was the discussion of discipline and Foucault's principles of it:
1. Spatialization
2. Minute control of activity
3. Repetitive exercises
4. Detailed hierarchies
5. Normalizing Judgements
All of this brought together in the architectural innovation of the panopticon.
To understand this you will need to read, but think of "armies, schools, hospitals, madhouses, poorhouses, and factories." Within that framework you might figure it out on your own.
Discourse is also very important.
Anyway, this makes me curious to fall down the Foucault rabbit hole. What I find could change the rating on this review. Of course it might change me as well.
August 15, 2014
I was disappointed with this volume in the "for Beginners" series for multiple lapses. The author emphasizes her own social obsessions instead of giving a balanced picture of Foucault's ideas, even admitting to this once. After some biographical matters, most of the rest of the book is a march through Foucault's representative writings. Aside from the author's selected emphasis, this is fairly well done. I was sorry that more of Foucault's ideas were not explored, especially his linguistics and his comments about literary criticism. Other books in this series have a section examining the impact of a thinker on other thinkers, and this is wholly neglected. I do not have a very high opinion of Foucault, but this book does him a disservice.
July 10, 2019
I threw aside 'Birth of the Clinic' after a short struggle with a wall of words and read this instead, which took a few hours at most. This is not what Foucault would have wanted me to do, apparently, but it serves him right for being intolerably obscure. If I go back to Birth of the Clinic I will at least come better prepared.
October 5, 2018
Funny and Clever!
Foo-co!
Foo-co!
January 10, 2020
I really liked this! Incredibly understandable but still introductions to complex ideas and topics and a nice ramp into the actual works of Foucault.
June 21, 2023
Finished reading this in one setting it kept me locked in from start to finish. What makes it even easier to flow through this is the comic book aspect that gives visual depictions of some of the different ideas of Foucault along with the explanation of them.
This year I've become more interested in Foucault's work especially in how he described systems of power especially the shift from the ruling power of say the king or sovereign to the normalizing power of surveillance and discipline from his book discipline and punish.
This book does I think a really good job giving a very basic chronology of Foucault's thought and as well the books and ideas that went along with them. It's interesting to see the evolution of his ideas from the beginning questioning the normal/abnormal with Madness and Civilization to his last books The History of Sexuality.
While this is a general overview of his books and ideas I look forward and am excited to read more of his books with the general idea of what they are trying to convey. Some of them no doubt are difficult reads and very academic but I feel with the familiarity of the ideas I can make a better crack at the challenge of reading them.
I'd recommend this to anyone who has ever been interested in learning about Foucault. As well if people are familiar with Foucault or some of his ideas this will be an enjoyable little read.
This year I've become more interested in Foucault's work especially in how he described systems of power especially the shift from the ruling power of say the king or sovereign to the normalizing power of surveillance and discipline from his book discipline and punish.
This book does I think a really good job giving a very basic chronology of Foucault's thought and as well the books and ideas that went along with them. It's interesting to see the evolution of his ideas from the beginning questioning the normal/abnormal with Madness and Civilization to his last books The History of Sexuality.
While this is a general overview of his books and ideas I look forward and am excited to read more of his books with the general idea of what they are trying to convey. Some of them no doubt are difficult reads and very academic but I feel with the familiarity of the ideas I can make a better crack at the challenge of reading them.
I'd recommend this to anyone who has ever been interested in learning about Foucault. As well if people are familiar with Foucault or some of his ideas this will be an enjoyable little read.
August 24, 2024
As someone who teaches Foucault’s work at university level (and who’s therefore read many of his writings), I’d recommend this book for an introduction to his main ideas and background. It’s accessible and engaging with some hints of disagreement and critique. I think it would provide a good starting point from which to engage with some of his specific ideas—and with those who have criticised Foucault as a man and a theorist. I read it to see whether students might find it helpful, and I’ll add it to their optional reading list!
November 26, 2017
Güçlü haklı mıdır? Ya da bilgi mi güçtür? Bu ikisi çok da farklı olmayabilir mi? Peki, normal insan kimdir? Kime anormal deneceğine kim karar verir? Akıl hastanelerinin ve hapishanelerin geçmişten günümüze evrimi hakkında 1960-70lerde ilginç eserler vermiş Foucault. Örneğin, hapishanenin bir cezalandırma biçimi olarak ortaya çıkması kültürel bir devrim değil midir? Çağdaş felsefenin önemli oyuncusu Foucault'yu keyifle tanıtıyor bu kitap.
May 21, 2025
i’m a little embarrassed to be reading this!! but why is the pursuit of knowledge embarrassing?!?! really good quick summary of foucault, who is someone i don’t foresee tackling in any real way until i have a grasp of basic philosophy lol …. so in that way, this book was effective!!
January 22, 2017
I have deep stress trying to read Foucault, but in 90 min this book did wonders introducing his work.
December 3, 2016
When I picked up this book in a small-town second-hand bookstore 2 years ago, I was really excited about the concept: taking key ideas from an influential academic and putting them into an accessible book. I just read the book now, though it sat unread on my shelf for a few years. I finished my degree in Political Science and Women and Gender studies a few years back, and during that time I often read critical scholarship that used Foucault’s works.
While I this book wasn’t exactly what I hoped for, it was still a pleasure to read and gave me a good sense of which Foucault readings I might want to go back to now. I did appreciate the illustrations and the playful layout in this book: I feel like it only helped in making the book more engaging and accessible. I did feel like some of the presentation of Foucault’s ideas could have been stronger – as mostly it was an overview of his books, along with some biographical information and historical context – but it was a useful refresher to works I was familiar with a good and short introduction to his other books. Finally, I did appreciate a few small moments where the author brought in a feminist analysis in engaging with Foucault’s ideas.
Having finished the book, I’m now feeling motivated to read The Birth of the Clinic, which unfortunately has sat unread on my shelves since I binge bought most of Foucault’s books during a moment of overexcitement as a 20-year-old undergrad.
While I this book wasn’t exactly what I hoped for, it was still a pleasure to read and gave me a good sense of which Foucault readings I might want to go back to now. I did appreciate the illustrations and the playful layout in this book: I feel like it only helped in making the book more engaging and accessible. I did feel like some of the presentation of Foucault’s ideas could have been stronger – as mostly it was an overview of his books, along with some biographical information and historical context – but it was a useful refresher to works I was familiar with a good and short introduction to his other books. Finally, I did appreciate a few small moments where the author brought in a feminist analysis in engaging with Foucault’s ideas.
Having finished the book, I’m now feeling motivated to read The Birth of the Clinic, which unfortunately has sat unread on my shelves since I binge bought most of Foucault’s books during a moment of overexcitement as a 20-year-old undergrad.
May 22, 2015
As I noted in one of my updates, 'I feel the author's opinion is coming across a little too strong. I realise it's difficult to be completely objective about something, especially the issues concerning gender, sexuality and normality as discussed by Foucault, but there is a level that can be achieved that was not (as I can now say) reached'. Basically, my views didn't really change as I waded my way through the fabulous illustrations and, at times, waffly prose that, in my honest opinion, reflected a little too much of the author's views. It was, however, a good read, and offered a fair introduction into the world of Foucault one I desperately wish I'd discovered earlier!
February 7, 2017
The illustrations were surprising (in a "yay, pictures!" kind of way). Don't let the fun look fool you, though, there's plenty of information packed in this small book. Nice intro.
December 13, 2008
I am not sure I would recommend this book to any of my friends, too cheesy for my more serious friends and likely not interesting to my less-serious friends. I just felt I needed to read a bit of Foucault and Sartre to better understand a perspective on certain things I had read concerning ideas in Marxism since the post-modern French philosophers.
March 18, 2016
La versión digital que me tocó leer es bastante mala, pero el libro está bien. Es claro y hace un repaso por toda la bibliografía de Foucault. Lo hace de forma sencilla y queda claro. No es muy profundo, pero no es lo que uno esperaría de un libro así. Vale la pena como introducción y recordatorio.
September 11, 2014
Even presented like this, it's still hard to grasp Foucault's thinking! The bits and pieces I got were interesting, though. Especially this notion of dehumanizing homosexuals by categorizing them as abnormal.
August 30, 2016
I've decided to opt for Theory 101 books for philosophists whose work I am not using in my thesis. Twas a quick and easy read (unlike his actual work :D )
March 3, 2017
Kind of a little TOO for beginners, but had some exciting ideas nonetheless.
March 9, 2023
LITERATURE in PUNK ROCK - Book #18-21
SONG: Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961) by the Weakerthans
https://youtu.be/D5taqbBYCys
BOOKS:
- Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
- The Cambridge Introduction to Michel Foucault
- Foucault for Beginners
- Introducing Foucault: Graphic Guide
---------------------------
Oct. 14th, 2003 - Epitaph Interview with John K Samson
Q: Again, on this record you use quite a bit of literary resources. How does this tie in to the songwriting?
Samson: Sometimes I just kind of go looking for inspiration somewhere. But, yeah, especially on this record specific books I thought about for a long time and then wrote about. But it's different every time; there's no formula.
Q: What's the deal with Shackleton?
Samson: (Laughter) I just really think he's an interesting figure; he was an Antarctic explorer at the turn of the last century. He's just really this interesting guy who explored Antarctica; so, I don't know, I think about him a lot. The idea was that "the retired explorer" would have been a member of one his expeditions in my mind when I think about that song. He was one of the grunts.
Q: And the whole "Dines with Michel Foucault"....
Samson: Yeah, it's kind of this idea of Modernism, and Foucault's very much a Post Modernist kind of philosopher, he's dead now... So, I thought of a clash between these two worlds would be really interesting; an interesting way to think about philosophy, life, and the way people try and understand each other, and sometimes they can't, but it doesn't really matter.
---------------------------
Our Retired Explorer sets up a meeting between French philosopher Michel Foucault and an unnamed member of Ernest Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 was an infamous failed expedition to cross the Antarctic continent. This harrowing tail of survival and human endurance is chronicled in Alfred Lansing's "Endurance" (1959). The book details the ship's crash and the consequent two years in which the twenty-eight survivors traversed over 850 miles of sub-arctic seas towards civilization.
In 1961, Michel Foucault had just published his doctorate thesis, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. This early Foucault work, his first major book, exams madness as social construct of Western European society distinct from the post-Enlightenment's evolved meaning as mental illness. The book presents both nascent structuralism and the emerging "archaeology of knowledge" methodology and histiography that formulates his later work.
As the Retired Explorer in the song responds: "I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about." A retired explorer of the 1914-17 expedition would have been about 70 years old in 1961. Many expedition survivors died in World War I. However, expedition physician Dr. Alexander Macklin lived until the late 1960s and spent much time assisting Alfred Lansing in writing Endurance (published two years before the song's supposed meeting).
The song doesn't stop with Shackleton and Foucault. In the song Michel Foucault gifts the mysterious Retired Explorer a book by French Philosopher Jacques Derrida. However, no such book exists. The notorious Deconstructionist Philosophy of Derrida did not arise until 1967. Prior to then, no significant texts exists outside of his translations of Edmund Husserl in 1962 (phenomenology, a concept Foucault opposed).
*Read February 22 - February 28
SONG: Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961) by the Weakerthans
https://youtu.be/D5taqbBYCys
BOOKS:
- Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
- The Cambridge Introduction to Michel Foucault
- Foucault for Beginners
- Introducing Foucault: Graphic Guide
---------------------------
Oct. 14th, 2003 - Epitaph Interview with John K Samson
Q: Again, on this record you use quite a bit of literary resources. How does this tie in to the songwriting?
Samson: Sometimes I just kind of go looking for inspiration somewhere. But, yeah, especially on this record specific books I thought about for a long time and then wrote about. But it's different every time; there's no formula.
Q: What's the deal with Shackleton?
Samson: (Laughter) I just really think he's an interesting figure; he was an Antarctic explorer at the turn of the last century. He's just really this interesting guy who explored Antarctica; so, I don't know, I think about him a lot. The idea was that "the retired explorer" would have been a member of one his expeditions in my mind when I think about that song. He was one of the grunts.
Q: And the whole "Dines with Michel Foucault"....
Samson: Yeah, it's kind of this idea of Modernism, and Foucault's very much a Post Modernist kind of philosopher, he's dead now... So, I thought of a clash between these two worlds would be really interesting; an interesting way to think about philosophy, life, and the way people try and understand each other, and sometimes they can't, but it doesn't really matter.
---------------------------
Our Retired Explorer sets up a meeting between French philosopher Michel Foucault and an unnamed member of Ernest Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 was an infamous failed expedition to cross the Antarctic continent. This harrowing tail of survival and human endurance is chronicled in Alfred Lansing's "Endurance" (1959). The book details the ship's crash and the consequent two years in which the twenty-eight survivors traversed over 850 miles of sub-arctic seas towards civilization.
In 1961, Michel Foucault had just published his doctorate thesis, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. This early Foucault work, his first major book, exams madness as social construct of Western European society distinct from the post-Enlightenment's evolved meaning as mental illness. The book presents both nascent structuralism and the emerging "archaeology of knowledge" methodology and histiography that formulates his later work.
As the Retired Explorer in the song responds: "I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about." A retired explorer of the 1914-17 expedition would have been about 70 years old in 1961. Many expedition survivors died in World War I. However, expedition physician Dr. Alexander Macklin lived until the late 1960s and spent much time assisting Alfred Lansing in writing Endurance (published two years before the song's supposed meeting).
The song doesn't stop with Shackleton and Foucault. In the song Michel Foucault gifts the mysterious Retired Explorer a book by French Philosopher Jacques Derrida. However, no such book exists. The notorious Deconstructionist Philosophy of Derrida did not arise until 1967. Prior to then, no significant texts exists outside of his translations of Edmund Husserl in 1962 (phenomenology, a concept Foucault opposed).
*Read February 22 - February 28
May 31, 2017
A fun little Goodwill find.
I love when I read up on a philosopher and discover all these thoughts I have been having (such as the nature of power and control being a systemic force within the neuro-linguistic centers of society and the limitations of "freedom" as a result of our inability to generally separate norms from realities of norms) are all philosophies from scholars I've just not yet read. :)
I hate, though, when I remember that all these philosophers are male-centric, mysogynists who forget (or fail to see) the nature of oppression that a cisgendered male's commentary on any other type of life (specifically female's, but really, all nonbinary identities) perpetuates. The oppressor cannot see the oppressed. He cannot imagine that the trials through which he gained (or was awarded) power could somehow be a misappropriation of a structure we (as in people) created and not just his own genius and ability to define what is best for others. EVEN Foucault, whose entire treatise is on the nature of the quiet powers that subtly shape us and order us about, seems to have failed to note the impact of gender.
Still, a fun Goodwill find.
I love when I read up on a philosopher and discover all these thoughts I have been having (such as the nature of power and control being a systemic force within the neuro-linguistic centers of society and the limitations of "freedom" as a result of our inability to generally separate norms from realities of norms) are all philosophies from scholars I've just not yet read. :)
I hate, though, when I remember that all these philosophers are male-centric, mysogynists who forget (or fail to see) the nature of oppression that a cisgendered male's commentary on any other type of life (specifically female's, but really, all nonbinary identities) perpetuates. The oppressor cannot see the oppressed. He cannot imagine that the trials through which he gained (or was awarded) power could somehow be a misappropriation of a structure we (as in people) created and not just his own genius and ability to define what is best for others. EVEN Foucault, whose entire treatise is on the nature of the quiet powers that subtly shape us and order us about, seems to have failed to note the impact of gender.
Still, a fun Goodwill find.
June 12, 2020
While this started out interesting and made an honest attempt to distill some of the most complicated ideas presented by Foucault, I found the author's personal biases and opinions start to seep in towards the mid-point of the book. At times it was confusing to tell whether something was Foucault's saying, or the author's own opinion as to what she would have liked him to have said. I got a feminist/social justice vibe from it towards the latter half of the book, and at that point I felt the credibility of what I was reading questionable. Overall, probably not the best book for beginners to get into Foucault.
Read
August 30, 2020Read this e-book since a couple different books I've been reading recently mention Foucault and I wanted to learn more about him. Not sure how to rate, as I'm unsure of how accurate this book is without reading any of Foucault's actual works. But this seemed pretty informative, and very easy to read with the comics interspersed. Makes me curious to tackle one of his books, though all the reviews mentioning how difficult they are is pretty intimidating. This series in general seems pretty useful, as I am not very familiar with philosophy, seems like a good way to at least learn some of the basics.
February 18, 2024
This provides a very good and simple-to-read (graphical) overview of Foucault's belief system. (If that's what you want to call it.)
As a layman coming to it, Foucault, as many thinkers deemed "radical," stirs together a powerful mixture of commonplaces facts, casual observations and extreme opinions requiring rather large intellectual leaps. Some of this feels like "hot takes" -- the desire to say radical things in order to be outrageous and draw attention to yourself. But I'll leave that to the professional philosophers to sort out.
Overall, a good introduction. This would probably be a good introduction for someone reading Foucault's works for the first time.
As a layman coming to it, Foucault, as many thinkers deemed "radical," stirs together a powerful mixture of commonplaces facts, casual observations and extreme opinions requiring rather large intellectual leaps. Some of this feels like "hot takes" -- the desire to say radical things in order to be outrageous and draw attention to yourself. But I'll leave that to the professional philosophers to sort out.
Overall, a good introduction. This would probably be a good introduction for someone reading Foucault's works for the first time.
August 30, 2025
Great book. I’m a massive fan of Foucault and this gives a good understanding of not only his work, but the ideas behind it and post-structuralism. It also does so from a feminist perspective that is sometimes critical of Foucault and taps in feminist lenses that Foucault may have missed, which is great. I would give this to someone interested in understanding Foucault though I must say that I do feel like I’m at an advantage as someone who is already a Foucault fan and not everyone might understand everything from the first read.
March 12, 2018
This is a great bathroom reader touching upon much of Foucault's ideology and its influences by Nietzsche, Satre, Marx, and Freud. As a former sociology major, I appreciate this as a refresher course and I'm sure those new to philosophy/sociology would too. It's not the most in-depth purview of his works, that's for sure and particularly with regard to sexuality, but it will do. The Documentary Comic Book series needs to develop this a bit more as well as revive their other radical works.
February 20, 2023
This wonderfully cynical and sardonic documentary comic book is a highly entertaining way to get a summary of Foucault's ideas and theories.
I read about some of his theories on social constructs, within medicine and education, and wanted a decent overview of his work. This hit the spot.
The illustrations are grotesque, explanatory and funny, and I love the caricature of the author conversing, (disagreeing or complaining at times) with Foucault.
I read about some of his theories on social constructs, within medicine and education, and wanted a decent overview of his work. This hit the spot.
The illustrations are grotesque, explanatory and funny, and I love the caricature of the author conversing, (disagreeing or complaining at times) with Foucault.
January 5, 2025
"... one must put 'in play', show up, transform, and reverse the systems which quietly order us about. As far as I am concerned, that is what I try to do in my work."
This is the best intro to Foucault I've read so far. It's chronological and concise, the art is fun & explains quite well how his personal life dictated his scholarly work. The more I read about Foucault, the more I'm fascinated by him.
This is the best intro to Foucault I've read so far. It's chronological and concise, the art is fun & explains quite well how his personal life dictated his scholarly work. The more I read about Foucault, the more I'm fascinated by him.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews