ABSTRACT
In the last chapter, we considered Foucault’s theoretical framework for thinking about monsters. In this chapter, we will consider his historical account of the monster. Before doing so however, it is first necessary to say something about Foucault’s approach to history. Foucault’s approach to history, or his historical method, has led one commentator to describe him as ‘the historian of alterity’ (Haroontunian, 1988, p 111). For Foucault’s histories take as their objects a series of human figures that have been constituted as societal problems within particular historical periods. These include the leper (Foucault, 1977, chapter 3), the madman (Foucault, 1971, 1973), criminal man (Foucault, 1977), the hysterical woman, the masturbating child and the homosexual (Foucault, 1978). In placing human difference at the forefront of his analyses, Foucault aims to recover ‘subjugated knowledges’ (Foucault, 1980b, p 81). Indeed, Foucault’s politics of marginality derive precisely ‘from th[is] principle of reversal’ (Aronowitz, 1979, p 142).
