ABSTRACT
The law is one of a number of domains of reality and study concerning which it has been customary since Foucault's death (if not already in his lifetime) to discuss, deplore, excuse, diagnose, or endeavour to make good, his failure to devote a degree of attention sufficient to satisfy the expectations of a certain audience. A discussion of Foucault and law is almost routinely obliged, very much in the same way as a discussion of Foucault and gender, Foucault and geography or Foucault and post-colonial studies, to begin by acknowledging a widely held opinion that his work can be criticized for saying too little about law, or for belittling and disparaging the historical importance of law, its function in the constitution of modernity, and its constitutive and normative presence in social reality.
