The Foucault Reader

Rating:
Summary: Contains some key selections...
Review: As Mr. Rabinow himself states, any selection of Foucault's wide range of works and écrits might seem random at best, pointless at worst. I believe, however, that this compilation includes some of Foucault's most important essays (particularly "What Is Enlightenment?" and "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History") and some VERY edited selections from his most famous oeuvres, especially "Discipline and Punish". If you want a very general overview of Foucault's theories, get this... some information contained here in priceless. If you are interested in reading his books... this certainly won't do. I think Mr Rabinow justly skips Foucault's initial "phase" (archeology) BUT unjustly overlooks most of Foucault's final phase (technologies & hermeneutics of the self). One of Foucault's most important essays is missing here, "The Subject & The Power", in which he pieces together his general reflexions on well, the subject and the power. I guess the reason for not including that article is because it is already featured as an extra "bonus" in Rabinow's own "Beyond Hermeneutics & Structuralism".
The introductory pages written by Paul Rabinow are ALSO excellent, by the way.
All in all, a good compilation, if only just a starting point.

Rating:
Summary: Contains some key selections...
Review: As Mr. Rabinow himself states, any selection of Foucault's wide range of works and écrits might seem random at best, pointless at worst. I believe, however, that this compilation includes some of Foucault's most important essays (particularly "What Is Enlightenment?" and "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History") and some VERY edited selections from his most famous oeuvres, especially "Discipline and Punish". If you want a very general overview of Foucault's theories, get this... some information contained here in priceless. If you are interested in reading his books... this certainly won't do. I think Mr Rabinow justly skips Foucault's initial "phase" (archeology) BUT unjustly overlooks most of Foucault's final phase (technologies & hermeneutics of the self). One of Foucault's most important essays is missing here, "The Subject & The Power", in which he pieces together his general reflexions on well, the subject and the power. I guess the reason for not including that article is because it is already featured as an extra "bonus" in Rabinow's own "Beyond Hermeneutics & Structuralism".
The introductory pages written by Paul Rabinow are ALSO excellent, by the way.
All in all, a good compilation, if only just a starting point.

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: Being a reader, this is even a bit more difficult to understand than average Foucault books. However, it boils his philosphies down to one major point: truths are relative and because of this, establishing truths are excercises in power. Foucault makes a good argument and stands to be exactly right if indeed there are no absolutes.

Rating:
Summary: All the Foucault you'll ever need....
Review: Foucault has been well served by this editor. Rabinow can't do anything about the author's dry, humorless prose style, but he has at least wittled it down into digestible chunks. Of course, Foucault's major thesis, that human liberation has made no progress in the last two centuries, is ludicrous. Foucault's continuing influence on American intellectual life is one of the enduring mysteries of our times.

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: Having been introduced to Foucault the hard way, i.e. reading The Order of Things as an undergraduate nearly twenty years ago, the reader was simply a synopsis of his work. Still, for someone who has never read his work or has had difficulty understanding him, this book serves as a good introdcution. I do recommend it only for beginners; it's not something for those of us more familiar with his work.

Rating:
Summary: Genesis
Review: Paul Rabinow does a spectacular job of compiling the "essential" Foucault. I needed to read "Madness and Civilization" as well as "I Pierre Riviere....." for a humanities course 2 years ago and this book was very helpful in placing Foucault in perspective. The Foucault Reader includes the controversial "What is an Author?", an article that outlines the complex mechanism of how a whole set of layers changes the way you, the reader, engage with the text. If Foucault and Roland Barthe were so busy analyzing the "Author Function", it makes one wonder: How much of their own "Author Function" where they aware of? By collaborating with Rabinow, Foucault is just as guilty of making his personality,notoriety and other works, work for or against each other. So much for the "Death of an Author". Notwithstanding all that I wrote above, I highly recommend this as a starting point, lest you get lost in Foucault's purposeful ambiguity.

Miguel Llora

Rating:
Summary: Genesis
Review: Paul Rabinow does a spectacular job of compiling the "essential" Foucault. I needed to read "Madness and Civilization" as well as "I Pierre Riviere....." for a humanities course 2 years ago and this book was very helpful in placing Foucault in perspective. The Foucault Reader includes the controversial "What is an Author?", an article that outlines the complex mechanism of how a whole set of layers changes the way you, the reader, engage with the text. If Foucault and Roland Barthe were so busy analyzing the "Author Function", it makes one wonder: How much of their own "Author Function" where they aware of? By collaborating with Rabinow, Foucault is just as guilty of making his personality,notoriety and other works, work for or against each other. So much for the "Death of an Author". Notwithstanding all that I wrote above, I highly recommend this as a starting point, lest you get lost in Foucault's purposeful ambiguity.

Miguel Llora

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction to Foucault - makes you want to read more
Review: This book offers a good overview of Foucaults writings, making the reader (at least me) wanting to dig deeper into several of the subjects Foucault addressed. A shortcoming is that, considering the wealth of Foucault's ouevre, some of the chapters are too condensed to be used as more than an "intellectual appetizer". I assume that for the reader who is not familiar with Foucault at all, some other book like "Foucault for Beginners" might be more useful for getting an overview. Starting from there one might want to read more anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Good beginning
Review: This is a good introductory book, not so good if you have (like myself) read a great deal of Foucault and have at least a solid grounding in some of his basic concepts.

Rating:
Summary: Goes down easy
Review: This volume includes some classic Foucault essays, like the segment from Birth of the Asylum in which Foucault explains how the asylum sets up controls by means of perpetual observation and perpetual judgement. By continually observing and judging people, the impetus for conformity is laid to rest, becomes less visible, less obvious and subsequently, according to Foucault, all the more powerful because of its restrained state. This is a similar theme in the segment Panopticism where Foucault shows a transition in prison systems from physical manipulation to implicit manipulation. This new form of control is implemented through a physical construction that creates the illusion of continual surveillance. This surveillance creates the impetus for self-control. It ties in rather tightly with earlier discussions by Elias and Bordeau on etiquette. Etiquette is enforced and reinforced by the social force of shame and embarrassment. People control themselves out of a desire not to be looked down upon - to control their own public reputations. Panopticism works in a similar way - by continual observation or the illusion of continual observation, people are expected to continually discipline themselves so as to avoid being disciplined by an external source.
This discussion of self-disciplining the self is an interesting paradigm to work with in the electronic media. TV personnel have certain self-imposed expectations - far beyond state censorship and far more powerful, the desire to be respected by one's peers and superiors, controls the content of the media. Similarly, chatters on the Net are divided on a range along this self-imposed discipline from those who deliberately say the most absurd things just because they are outside the Panopticon to those who continue to hold real whole expectations of themselves in the virtual world. Between these two is a whole range of behaviors from constructing wildly inaccurate selves for Net view to "white lies" about age, weight, hair color, etc. The Net is interesting precisely because it falls outside the daily life which is observed and surveyed, i.e. similar in structure to a social Panopticon and TV news is interesting because it is a much more highly judged arena to step into. Foucault's writing provides more points from which to view the same sociological problem, allowing a researcher to more ably unpack issues embedded in the study.