Foucault Against Himself

by François Caillat, Leo Bersani (Contribution by), Georges Didi-Huberman (Contribution by), Arlette Farge (Contribution by), Geoffroy de Lagasnerie (Contribution by)

Overview

In his private life, as well as in his work and political attitudes, Michel Foucault often stood in contradiction to himself, especially when his expansive ideas collided with the institutions in which he worked. In Francois Caillat's provocative collection of essays and interviews based on his French documentary of the same name, leading contemporary critics and philosophers reframe Foucault's legacy in an effort to build new ways of thinking about his struggle against society's mechanisms of domination, demonstrating how conflict within the self lies at the heart of Foucault's life and work.

Includes a foreword written especially for this edition by Paul Rabinow, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California (Berkeley) and an influential writer on the works of Foucault; he is the co-editor of The Essential Foucault.

Foucault against Himself features essays and interviews by:

Leo Bersani, American Professor Emeritus of French at the University of California (Berkeley) and the author of Homos;

Georges Didi-Huberman, French philosopher and art historian; his most recent book is Gerhard Richter: Pictures/Series

Arlette Farge, French historian and the author of The Allure of the Archives;

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, French philosopher and the author of La derniere lecon de Michel Foucault.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551526027
Publisher:	Arsenal Pulp Press, Limited
Publication date:	10/13/2015
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

François Caillat : François Caillat is a filmmaker. He has taught philosophy, and made a number of documentaries, including works on Nobel Prize-winning French author J.M.G. Le Clézio and feminist writer Julia Kristeva. His documentary Foucault contre lui-même was broadcast in France in 2014.
Leo Bersani: Leo Bersani’s career spans more than 50 years and extends across a wide spectrum of fields including French studies, modernism, realist fiction, psychoanalytic criticism, film studies and queer theory. His books include Homos.
Georges Didi-Huberman : Georges Didi-Huberman is a French philosopher and art historian. His books include The Invention of Hysteria and Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz.
Arlette Farge: Arlette Farge Is a French historian and the author of The Allure of the Archives.
Geoffroy de Lagasnerie : Geoffroy de Lagasnerie is a philosopher based in Paris. His books include La dernière leçon de Michel Foucault.

Table of Contents

Foreword Paul Rabinow 7

Introduction François Caillat 13

On the Perception of the Intolerable Arlette Farge 25

Learning to Escape (Meditations on Relational Modes) Leo Bersani 55

Knowing When to Cut Georges Didi-Huberman 77

What Does It Mean to Think? Geoffroy de Lagasnerie 111

Editorial Reviews

"Michel Foucault is one of the great exemplars of an intellectual never content to rest with the resolutions at which he arrives from one moment to the next. He charts a discernable path from start to finish, but a path that regularly folds back on itself, corrects its wrong turns and takes new substantive directions as the quest for a continuous transformation of himself through his work compels him to do. Foucault against himself: if we heed his precedent, we might avoid falling into the hollow and blind abyss into which the intellectually complacent almost always fall." —Prof. James D. Faubion, Rice Universityand editor of Foucault Now

"Michel Foucault is one of the great exemplars of an intellectual never content to rest with the resolutions at which he arrives from one moment to the next. He charts a discernable path from start to finish, but a path that regularly folds back on itself, corrects its wrong turns and takes new substantive directions as the quest for a continuous transformation of himself through his work compels him to do. Foucault against himself: if we heed his precedent, we might avoid falling into the hollow and blind abyss into which the intellectually complacent almost always fall." —Prof. James D. Faubion, Rice Universityand editor of Foucault Now

From the Publisher