ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers, France, in 1926 and died in 1984. A graduate in philosophy and psychology from the elite École Normale Supérieure, Foucault became known for his often surprising and provocative analyses of how modern man turned himself into an object of knowledge, and how this process was deeply intertwined with social conditions and relations of power. He studied how the emerging modern scientific discourses in Western Europe were interconnected with administrative and governmental practices, including strategies for governing the unproductive, the sick and the deviant, institutional reforms, and techniques for regulating towns, grain prices, contagious diseases, and more. Best known are his studies of the emergence of the modern prison ( Discipline and Punish , 1977), the social function of sexuality through history (The History of Sexuality vol. 1, 1990) and his analysis of the modern human sciences and of man as a knowing subject (The Order of Things, 1994). Gutting’s (2005) Foucault: A Very Short Introduction provides a solid starting foundation. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (Dean 1999a) places Foucault in a sociological context, with particular focus on governmentality. The anthology by Bröckling, Krasmann and Lemke (2011), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges, offers an up-to-date collection of Foucauldian research, including into biopolitics.
