Michel Foucault PDF
Preview Michel Foucault
#27.95 L ׳: _׳' ;!{r^ ! 5OliJCA Didier Eribon Translated by Betsy U mg t the time of his death in 1984, at the age of fifty-eight, Michel Foucault was widely regarded as one of the most powerful minds of this century. Hailed by distinguished historians and lionized on his frequent visits to America, he continues to provoke lively debate. The nature and merits of his accomplishments remain tan- gled in controversy. Rejecting traditional liberal and Marxist “dreams of solidarity,” Foucault became the very model of the modern intellec- tual, replacing Sartre as the figure of the eminent Parisian and cosmopolitan master thinker. Foucault him self discouraged biographical questions, claiming that he was “not at all inter- esting.” Didier Eribon’s captivating account overthrows that assertion. As a journalist well acquainted with Foucault for years before his death, Eribon was particularly well placed to conduct the dozens of interviews which are the cornerstone of this book. He has drawn upon eyewitness accounts by Foucault’s closest associ- ates from all phases of his life — his mother, his schoolteachers, his classmates, his friends and enemies in academic life, and his celebrated companions in political activism, including Simone Signoret and Yves Montand. Eribon has methodically retraced the footsteps of his peri- patetic subject, from France to Sweden to Poland to Germany to Tunisia to Brazil to Japan to the United States. The result is a concise, crisply readable, meticulously documented narrative that debunks the many myths and rumors sur- rounding the brilliant philosopher — and forces us to consider seriously the idea that all his books are indeed, just as Foucault said near the end of his life, “fragments of an autobiography.” Who was this man, Michel Foucault? In the late 1950s Foucault emerged as a budding young cul- tural attaché, friendly with Gaullist diplomats. By the mid-1960s he appeared as one of the ava- tars of structuralism, positioning himself as a new star in the fashionable world of French thought. A few months after the May 1968 stu- dent revolt, with Gaullism apparently shaken, he (continued on back flap) Michel Foucault M ichel Foucault Didier Eribon Translated by Betsy W ing H arvard U niversity Press Cambridge, Massachusetts 1991 Copyright © 1991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 1098765432 i Originally published in 1989 by Flammarion Translation of this volume has been aided by a grant from the French Ministry of Culture. This book is printed on acid-free paper, and its binding materials have been chosen for strength and durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eribon, Didier. [Michel Foucault. English] Michel Foucault / Didier Eribon ; translated by Betsy Wing, p. cm. Translation of: Michel Foucault. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0674-57287-4־ (alk. paper) i. Philosophers— France— Biography. I. Title. B2430.F724E7513 1991 194—dc20 [B] 91-7186 CIP For O livier Séguret Contents w v Preface ix Part I. Psychology in Hell 1. “The City Where I Was Born” 3 2. The Voice of Hegel 15 3. Rue d’Ulm 24 4. The Carnival of Madmen 4 1 5. Stalin’s Shoemaker 5° 6. Discords of Love 61 7. Uppsala, Warsaw, Hamburg 73 Part II. The Order of Things 99 8. The Talent of a Poet 101 9. The Book and Its Doubles 1 16 10. The Dandy and the Reforms 128 11 . Opening Bodies 144 12. Ramparts of the Bourgeoisie 155 13. The Open Sea 187 Part III. “Militant and Professor at the Collège de France” 199 14. A Vincennes Interlude 201 15. The Solitude of the Acrobat 2 I 2 16. A Lesson from the Darkness 224 17. Popular Justice and the Workers’ Memory 238 18. “We Are All Ruled” 263 19. A Revolution of Bare Hands 281 20. Missed Appointments 296 2 i. Zen and California 3°9 2 2. Life as a Work of Art 3 0 C ontents Notes 335 Selected Works of Foucault 359 Acknowledgments 361 Index 365 W Vili 'VV Death conceals no mystery. It opens no door. It is the end of a human being. He is survived by the things he has given other human beings, by the things remaining in their memory. Norbert Elias W riting a biography of Michel Foucault may seem paradox- ical. Did he not, on numerous occasions, challenge the no- tion of the author, thereby dismissing the very possibility of a biographical study? When I started this book, several of his friends and closest relatives brought this up. But although it may seem rele- vant, it also seems to me that this objection takes care of itself. Foucault did indeed question the notion of the author. But what does that mean? Fie demonstrated that in our societies the circulation of dis- courses had to submit to restrictive forms imposed by notions of au- thor, work, and commentary Even so, Foucault could not isolate himself from the society in which he lived. He, like everyone else, was forced to fulfill the “functions” he described. So he signed his books and made connections among them with a collection of prefaces, ar- tides, and interviews, endeavoring to demonstrate the coherence of his oeuvre or to show the dynamics of his research from one stage to the next. He played the commentary game, participating in conferences devoted to his work, answering objections and criticism, good and bad readings. Michel Foucault, in short, is an author. He produced an oeuvre, which has been subject to commentary. Seminars, meetings, and debates about his work are still being organized in France today, and all over the world texts are being collected into complete editions of his “writings and sayings.” There is much discussion about whether or not the tape recordings of his courses at the Collège de France should be published. Why, then, should biography be the one forbidden form? Because Foucault always refused to release the facts of his life, as some have claimed? That is untrue. He provided a lot of information in sev- IX ׳W
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