On February 2, 1983, during his lecture at Collège de France, Michel Foucault criticizes the concept of political (le politique). According to Foucault, shift from politics (la politique) masks “the specific problem and set problems politics, dunasteia, practice game, game as a field experience with its rules normativity, inasmuch it is indexed truth-telling involves certain relationship onesel...

This article considers the challenge that an English legal history of the category monster poses for Foucault’s genealogy of the abnormal individual. While the idea of the monster is not confined to law it is contended that the inauguration of the monster category into English law and its subsequent development provides a useful vantage point from which to critique Foucault’s position. While la...