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Cambridge Introductions to Literature
The Cambridge Introduction to Michel Foucault
French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault is essential reading for students in departments of literature, history, sociology and cultural studies. His work on the institutions of mental health and medicine, the history of systems of knowledge, literature and literary theory, criminality and the prison system, and sexuality, has had a profound and enduring impact across the humanities and social sciences. This introductory book, written for students, offers in-depth critical and contextual perspectives on all of Foucault's major published works. It provides ways in to understanding Foucault's key concepts of subjectivity, discourse, and power and explains the problems of translation encountered in reading Foucault in English. The book also explores the critical reception of Foucault's works and acquaints the reader with the afterlives of some of his theories, particularly his influence on feminist and queer studies. This book offers the ideal introduction to a famously complex, controversial and important thinker.
152 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 2, 2011
Useful academic introduction to Foucault. Author also covers different critiques of Foucault, including feminist and queer perspectives. I would recommend to anyone hoping to get a well-rounded review of his writings.
December 26, 2008
Saw this on Monday, bought it and then read it today.
Useful, good, concise, overview of Foucault's major works.
this is the second cambridge introduction to... book I've read this month, and will probably check out some others.
Useful, good, concise, overview of Foucault's major works.
this is the second cambridge introduction to... book I've read this month, and will probably check out some others.
April 18, 2025
Esa increíble sensación cuando un libro académico cumple lo que promete, y encima lo hace bien. Es una buenísima introducción, dirigida (como la autora dice en la Introducción) a personas que se acercan a Foucault desde los estudios literarios y culturales (es que soy yo literal; sirva también como caveat a filósofos y teóricos políticos, particularmente). El uso de las notas me dio también una lección de humildad.
November 6, 2012
This is a very good, brief introduction to Foucault. Downing provides short summaries of his books, focusing on the significant concepts that emerge from each. The book is probably most useful for literary theory students, and much less useful for political theory students. There is a chapter devoted to Foucault's essays on writing and the author (the only chapter not related to a book of Foucault's), but no chapter on his political essays. So, personally, I don't have a lot of use for this book as a teacher. But, I can see where someone else might.
April 9, 2012
Lisa Downing's book is by far the best overview on Foucault. It has deepened what I already know, as well as introduced me to crucial new information. Her book is highly accessible yet rigorously scholarly. Downing has given me a model for how to write my own critical introduction on the topic of ... :)
August 14, 2014
A good brief introduction to Foucault. Explains most of his major works, but unfortunately doesn't go into much depth and misses some of his key stuff (eg state racism). Nonetheless, very helpful for Foucault neophytes. Better if supplemented with applications of his work (eg feminist or queer theory). Good aid for a course.
I Foucouldn't. Then I Foucould. And Foucan too!
I Foucouldn't. Then I Foucould. And Foucan too!
April 2, 2021
Really good starting point for looking into Foucault. The book is structured really well, with both context and criticism on each of Foucault's theories. Would definitely recommend if you wanted to delve into Foucault but were slightly intimidated by him...
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
March 25, 2021
Gets a lot right, much more accurate than earlier receptions of Foucault, in part aided by publication & translation of his lectures at College de France which began in 1997.
February 26, 2014
F'nin temel eserlerinin güzel bir anlatımıydı. Bunun dışında onu eleştiren çalışmalara da atıflar vardı ki birkaç tanesini not aldım. Ama tabii ki F'nin Marksist eleştirisi yok. Hele bütün diyalektik teorisi herşeyin çelişki içinde olduğunu söylerken, yazarın 'Marksizm'de tek çatışma proletarya ile burjuvazi arasında olur, Foucault buna karşıydı' sözlerini ağlayarak okudum. "Anlayamazsınız".
September 18, 2015
a thoroughly remarkable introduction to Foucault and his works...
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews