I can't help but dream about a type of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. - Michel Foucault, Foucault Live (Interviews, 1966-84). Trans. John Johnston. Semiotext(e), 1989: 193 - 202.
People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does.
― Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (Vintage Books, 1965)
Foucault Info (Website on/about Michel Foucault)
Foucault, Michel. “Introduction.” Archaeology Of Knowledge. ed. A. M. Sherida Smith. Vintage, 1982: 3-20.
---. “Madness, the absence of an œuvre.” In History of Madness, edited by J. Khalfa, 541-549. Routledge, 2006.
---. "Of Other Spaces." (This text, entitled "Des Espace Autres," and published by the French journal Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité in October, 1984, was the basis of a lecture given by Michel Foucault in March 1967.)
---. “Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Criticism of Political Reason.” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Vol. II. ed. S. McMurrin. Univ. of Utah Press, 1981: 225 - 254.
---. “Polemics, Politics and Problematizations.” (Interview by Paul Rabinow, May 1984). Essential Works of Foucault. Vol. 1. The New Press, 1998.
---. “The Subject and Power.” Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. ed. H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow. The University of Chicago Press, 1983: 208-226.
---. “Technologies of the Self.” (Lectures at University of Vermont Oct. 1982) Technologies of the Self. University of Massachusets Press, 1988: 16-49.
---. "Truth, Power, Self.” (Interview by R. Martin recorded on October 25th, 1982). Technologies of the Self. ed. L. Martin, et al. University of Massachusetts Press, 1988: 9-13.
Gutting, Gary and Johanna Oksala. "Michel Foucault." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (May 22, 2018)
Hovey, Jed. "The Spectacle of the Scaffold – Foucault, Corporal Punishment, and the Digital Age." Blue Labyrinths (January 6, 2016)
Kelly, Mark. "Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ND)
Koopman, Colin. "The Power Thinker." Aeon (March 15, 2017) ["One need not be locked away in a prison cell to be subject to its designs of disciplinary dressage. The most chilling line in Discipline and Punish is the final sentence of the section entitled ‘Panopticism’, where Foucault wryly asks: ‘Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?’ If Foucault is right, we are subject to the power of correct training whenever we are tied to our school desks, our positions on the assembly line or, perhaps most of all in our time, our meticulously curated cubicles and open-plan offices so popular as working spaces today. To be sure, disciplinary training is not sovereign violence. But it is power. Classically, power took the form of force or coercion and was considered to be at its purest in acts of physical violence. Discipline acts otherwise. It gets a hold of us differently. It does not seize our bodies to destroy them, as Leviathan always threatened to do. Discipline rather trains them, drills them and (to use Foucault’s favoured word) ‘normalises’ them. All of this amounts to, Foucault saw, a distinctly subtle and relentless form of power. To refuse to recognise such disciplining as a form of power is a denial of how human life has come to be shaped and lived. If the only form of power we are willing to recognise is sovereign violence, we are in a poor position to understand the stakes of power today. If we are unable to see power in its other forms, we become impotent to resist all the other ways in which power brings itself to bear in forming us."]
Lennard, Natasha. "On Non-Fascist Life." Politics Theory Other (August 14, 2019) ["Natasha Lennard joins me to discuss her book, 'Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life'. We spoke about whether or not Donald Trump and the movement that has coalesced around him ought to be characterised as fascist, we also talked about the contributions of Wilhelm Reich, Michel Foucault, and other figures in the anti-psychiatry movement to theorising fascism. We discussed the legitimacy and history of anti-fascist violence and its treatment by the media, and finally we spoke about Natasha's writing on suicide and how the act of suicide brings into question capitalism's positing of the idea of the sovereign individual."]
Manokha, Ivan. "New Means of Workplace Surveillance: From the Gaze of the Supervisor to the Digitalization of Employees." Monthly Review (February 1, 2019)
Sennett, Richard. "Sexuality and Solitude." The London Review of Books 3.9 (May 21, 1981) [Discussion of a seminar Sennett and Foucault did together.]
Sluga, Hans. "On the Life and Work of Michel Foucault." Entitled Opinions (April 18, 2012)
Smith, Victoria L. "The Heterotopias of Todd Haynes: Creating Space for Same Sex Desire in Carol." Film Criticism 42.1 (March 2018) ["Using Foucault’s concept of heterotopia (an “other space”), this essay contends space is key to understanding Haynes’s Carol. It examines how Haynes, through his meticulous attention to framings, textures, color, and spatial relations, creates a queer counter space, time, and look—a rejection of early 1950s social and sexual propriety."]
West, Stephen. "Michel Foucault (Part 1)." Philosophize This (August 15, 2018) ["This episode introduces Michel Foucault through his book Discipline and Punish, exploring how societies shifted from public executions to controlling people through discipline and routine. Foucault argues that modern punishment isn't about justice—it's about maintaining power. He explains how systems like prisons, schools, and workplaces use surveillance, rules, and constant evaluation to shape behavior. Inspired by the panopticon—a design where prisoners never know when they’re being watched—Foucault shows how this logic now runs through all of modern life. We internalize these systems, watching and judging ourselves to fit into what society tells us is “normal.” Power, he says, doesn’t just come from governments or wealth, but from the knowledge that defines who we are and how we live." Further Reading: The Society of the Spectacle – Guy Debord (1967); The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction – Michel Foucault (1976); Punishment and Social Structure – Georg Rusche & Otto Kirchheimer (1939)]
---. "Michel Foucault Pt. 2 - The Order of Things." Philosophize This! #122 (September 24, 2018) ["This episode continues the exploration of Michel Foucault by examining how scientific knowledge is shaped not just by discovery, but by deep, often invisible cultural assumptions. Living in a time of great faith in science, Foucault challenged the idea that progress in fields like physics or biology leads to objective truth. Instead, he focused on epistemes—unconscious frameworks that shape what societies consider knowable or valid. Through works like The Order of Things and The Birth of the Clinic, he showed how institutions such as hospitals and prisons are influenced by shifting language and norms, not just function. Foucault distinguishes between repressive power (force) and normalizing power (internalized expectations), arguing that modern societies maintain control by shaping how people see themselves. Ultimately, he urges us to question the dominant narratives we take for granted, revealing them as historically contingent systems grounded in power." Further Reading: The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences by Michel Foucault (1970); The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction by Michel Foucault (1978); Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott (1998).]
---. "Michel Foucault Pt. 3 - Power." Philosophize This (September 24, 2018) ["This episode continues the series on Michel Foucault by exploring how he challenged the idea that truth is universal and progress is rational. Building on earlier discussions of Kant, science, and criminal justice, it focuses on Madness and Civilization, where Foucault argues that modern approaches to mental illness are not more humane, but part of a broader system that objectifies and controls people under the guise of care. His method evolves from “archaeology,” which uncovers forgotten ways of thinking, to “genealogy,” which traces how ideas develop through power. Foucault reveals that modern power is no longer top-down and repressive, but diffuse and productive, shaping norms, behaviors, and identities through what he calls biopower. Rather than silencing us, power invites confession, self-surveillance, and conformity to scientific discourse. The episode closes by emphasizing that Foucault’s aim isn’t to replace dominant narratives, but to question them—revealing how they shape our lives and asking what might lie beyond them. Further Reading: Foucault: A Very Short Introduction by Gary Gutting (2005); The Philosophy of Foucault by Todd May (2006); Biopower: Foucault and Beyond edited by Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar (2015)."]
Yarmuth, Aaron. "Rethinking the police: no traffic stops, no-knock warrants." LEO Weekly (June 4, 2020) [MB - For nearly two months during the pandemic police in my area were virtually absent/invisible. Chaos did not erupt, crime did not go up, and Darwinian struggles between my neighbors over resources did not take place. It pushed me to re-visit the realization/thought of why does a large part of our society believe we need to flood the streets/our-neighborhoods with police and have them poking into ever aspects of our lives/interactions? How have many of us have been conditioned to believe we are not safe without police and what does that say about the instillation of our own unconscious police inside our own heads? It reminds me of reading Michel Foucault's history Discipline and Punish where he remarks on a "secret history of the police" where greater attention is paid to investigating and arresting criminals, than the essential aspects of public health, social welfare and regulating the marketplace. Is this what we want? Should we change this aspect of our civil society?]
![Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546021702l/42260858._SX98_.jpg)
Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death] by Simeon WadeMB: I read this on a lazy, warm (but not oppressively hot), Sunday; drifting in and out of the narrative, searching out long forgotten philosophers/books mentioned, remembering my own trips in remote Western desert wonderlands, nostalgic for when I was so electrified when dining/partying with visiting intellectuals/artists at my universities and recognizing the stifling culture of a repressive academic environment that is unable to completely contain the wild flowering of jouissance amongst those fervently committed to its 'ecstative cultivation' (my conception: ecstative, for me, is imaginative discourse that does not stop and builds to an explosive point of multiple moments of discovery/wonder).
Do not approach this slim volume as if it may be the great lost Foucauldian codex that holds great secrets of the life and transformation of Foucault, an impulse he dismisses as pointless throughout this portrayal of him on this trip (and verified in many interviews). This impulse toward certainty reminds me of the stifled/arrogant academics that assault Foucault with banal questions after his productive open-ended discussions with the students near the end. Instead, the book is about Foucault accepting an invitation to hang out with some scholars (which just happens to include an acid trip in the desert) and having a series of open discussions about whatever was on their minds (as we do in those informal settings). It is not a guidebook to Foucault's thinking, instead it is a glimpse into/of Foucault as experienced/remembered by a young scholar.
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