The Cambridge Foucault Lexicon

The domestication of Foucault

Though Foucault was intrigued by the possibilities of radical social transformation, he resolutely resisted the idea that such transformation could escape the effects of power and expressed caution when it came to the question of revolution. In this article we argue that in one particularly influential line of development of Foucault’s work his exemplary caution has been exaggerated in a way th...

Foucault Studies

REVIEW ESSAY Michel Foucault, History of Madness, translated by Jonathan Murphy and Jean Khalfa (London/New York: Routledge, 2006) ISBN: 0415277019. Alain Beaulieu, Laurentian University Réal Fillion, University of Sudbury Introduction Since its presentation on May 20, 1961, Foucault’s principal doctoral thesis has never ceased both to fascinate and to fuel controversy.1 Blanchot, Barthes, ...

Foucault Studies

INTERVIEW Governing Liberal Societies – the Foucault Effect in the English‐ speaking World1 Jacques Donzelot, University of Paris X‐Nanterre Colin Gordon, Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust JD: In the two volumes of his lectures of 1978 and 1979, we see Michel Foucault making a major intellectual change of direction, moving away from an analysis of power as the formation and production of i...

Foucault and the smart city

This paper critically analyses the concept of the ‘smart city’, focusing on uncovering the formation of a Foucauldian smart city ‘discourse’. Smart city developments and policies might be seen to support new ways of imagining, organising and managing the city and its flows. Alternatively, it might be argued that they seek to impress a new moral order on cities by introducing specific technical ...

Foucault and the Natural Sciences