Though Foucault is now widely taught in universities, his writings are notoriously difficult. Reassessing Foucault critically examines the implications of his work for students and researchers in a wide range of areas in the social and human sciences. Focusing on the social history of medicine, successive chapters deal with his historiographical, methodological and philosophical writings, his ideas about prisons, hospitals, madness and disease, and his thinking about the body. The book also suggests ways in which Foucault's influence will continue to dominate cultural history and the social sciences.

Once the cosmopolitan center of the Middle East, Beirut was devastated by the civil war that ran from 1975 to 1991, which dislocated many residents, disrupted normal municipal functions, and destroyed the vibrant downtown district. The aftermath of the war was an unstable situation Sawalha considers "a postwar state of emergency," even as the state strove to restore normalcy. This ethnography centers on various groups' responses to Beirut's large, privatized urban-renewal project that unfolded during this turbulent moment. At the core of the study is the theme of remembering space. The official process of rebuilding the city as a node in the global economy collided with local day-to-day concerns, and all arguments invariably inspired narratives of what happened before and during the war. Sawalha explains how Beirutis invoked their past experiences of specific sites to vie for the power to shape those sites in the future. Rather than focus on a single site, the ethnography crosses multiple urban sites and social groups, to survey varied groups with interests in particular spaces. The book contextualizes these spatial conflicts within the discourses of the city's historical accounts and the much-debated concept of heritage, voiced in academic writing, politics, and journalism. In the afterword, Sawalha links these conflicts to the social and political crises of early twenty-first-century Beirut.

Michel Foucault was one of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers whose work has unsettled and transformed the field of social philosophy and the social sciences. The essays and articles selected for this volume are written by many of the most important of Foucault’s interpreters and interlocutors and show the range of Foucault’s influence and the debates it has provoked about Foucault’s own approaches and in relation to substantive areas of social philosophy and social science such as power, critique, enlightenment, law, governance, ethics and truthfulness. This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to, and overview of, the development of Foucault’s thought and demonstrates its enduring significance on our understanding of how we have become what we are.

A Companion to Foucault comprises a collection of essays from established and emerging scholars that represent the most extensive treatment of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s works currently available. Comprises a comprehensive collection of authors and topics, with both established and emerging scholars represented Includes chapters that survey Foucault’s major works and others that approach his work from a range of thematic angles Engages extensively with Foucault's recently published lecture courses from the Collège de France Contains the first translation of the extensive ‘Chronology’ of Foucault’s life and works written by Foucault’s life-partner Daniel Defert Includes a bibliography of Foucault’s shorter works in English, cross-referenced to the standard French edition Dits et Ecrits