According to Michel Foucault, the 'history of the present' should constitute the starting point for any enquiry into the past. This collection considers the continued relevance of Foucault's work for thinking the history of our present and includes essays and interviews by Judith Butler, Judith Revel, Mark Neocleous, and Tiziana Terranova.

According to Michel Foucault, the 'history of the present' should constitute the starting point for any enquiry into the past. This collection considers the continued relevance of Foucault's work for thinking the history of our present and includes essays and interviews by Judith Butler, Judith Revel, Mark Neocleous, and Tiziana Terranova.

When one defines "order" as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature, art, economics and even biology in The Order of Things, possibly one of the most significant, yet most overlooked, works of the twentieth century. Eclipsed by his later work on power and discourse, nonetheless it was The Order of Things that established Foucault's reputation as an intellectual giant. Pirouetting around the outer edge of language, Foucault unsettles the surface of literary writing. In describing the limitations of our usual taxonomies, he opens the door onto a whole new system of thought, one ripe with what he calls "exotic charm". Intellectual pyrotechnics from the master of critical thinking, this book is crucial reading for those who wish to gain insight into that odd beast called Postmodernism, and a must for any fan of Foucault.

This volume is the first to address Foucault's influence and the potential of his work in the understanding and the writing of history. It does so critically and accessibly. Scholars from the United States, France and Italy, including historians, sociologists, an anthropogist and a philosopher, range over Foucault's writing - on love and the family in classical antiquity, the constitution of the self, the history of science and sexuality, to the origins of the liberal state. But, true to its subject, this book does not conceive of history divorced from philosophy: it explores how Foucault's understanding of the past relates to his ideas of truth, ethics, knowledge and action. All-in-all, the book offers a series of mind-opening perspectives on Foucault's work, on the past, and on the present.

"Brought to light at last--the fourth volume in the famous History of Sexuality series by one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, his final work, which he had completed, but not yet published, upon his death in 1984 Michel Foucault's philosophy has made an indelible impact on Western thought, and his History of Sexuality series--which traces cultural and intellectual notions of sexuality, arguing that it is profoundly shaped by the power structures applied to it--is one of his most influential works. At the time of his death in 1984, he had completed--but not yet edited or published--the fourth volume, which posits that the origins of totalitarian self-surveillance began with the Christian practice of confession. This is a text both sweeping and deeply personal, as Foucault--born into a French Catholic family--undoubtedly wrestled with these issues himself. Since he had stipulated "Pas de publication posthume," this text has long been secreted away. However, the sale of the Foucault archives in 2013--which made this text available to scholars--prompted his nephew to seek wider publication. This attitude was shared by Foucault's longtime partner, Daniel Defert, who said, "What is this privilege given to Ph.D students? I have adopted this principle: It is either everybody or nobody.""--

Viewing Foucault in the light of work by Continental and American philosophers, most notably Nietzsche, Habermas, Deleuze, Richard Rorty, Bernard Williams, and Ian Hacking, Genealogy as Critique shows that philosophical genealogy involves not only the critique of modernity but also its transformation. Colin Koopman engages genealogy as a philosophical tradition and a method for understanding the complex histories of our present social and cultural conditions. He explains how our understanding of Foucault can benefit from productive dialogue with philosophical allies to push Foucaultian genealogy a step further and elaborate a means of addressing our most intractable contemporary problems.

In a late interview, Foucault, suggested that Heidegger was for him the "essential philosopher." Taking this claim seriously, Mapping the Present assesses the relationship between these two thinkers, particularly on the issue of space and history. It suggests that space and history need to be rethought, and combined as a spatial history, rather than as a history of space. In other words, space should become not merely an object of analysis, but a tool of analysis.The first half of the book concentrates on Heidegger: from the early occlusion of space, through the politically charged readings of Nietzsche and Holderlin, to the later work on art, technology and the polis which accord equal status to issues of spatiality. Foucault's work is then rethought in the light of the analysis of Heidegger, and the project of a spatial history established through re-readings of his works on madness and discipline..