Progressive Geographies

Thinking Allowed: Michel Foucault (2013)
Program on BBC Radio 4

Duration: 28 minutes
First broadcast: Wednesday 21 August 2013

Michel Foucault – Laurie Taylor presents a special programme on the life and work of the iconoclastic French philosopher and theorist. He’s joined by Professor Stephen Shapiro, Professor Vikki Bell and Professor Lois McNay.

Stephen Shapiro
Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick

How to Read Foucault’s Discipline and Punish
Anne Schwan, Stephen Shapiro (authors)
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN-10: 0745329810
ISBN-13: 978-0745329819

The Anti-capitalist Foucault (forthcoming)

Vikki Bell
Professor of Sociology and Convenor of MA in Critical & Creative Analysis at Goldsmiths College, London

The Art of Post-Dictatorship: Ethics and Aesthetics in Transitional Argentina
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN-10: 0415717337
ISBN-13: 978-0415717335

Interrogating Incest: Feminism, Foucault and the Law
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN-10: 0415101042
ISBN-13: 978-0415101042

Lois McNay
Professor of Theory of Politics and Fellow, Somerville College, University of…

Michel Foucault began the first of his 1983 lectures on The Government of Self and Others with a few comments on the peculiar challenges of lecturing to a public with whom — given the nature of the Collège de France — he could have little direct contact, went on to offer a concise (and elegant) review of the line of research he had been pursuing, and closed with a few comments on the text he had chosen as his point of departure:

This week I would like to start with, how to put it, not exactly an excursus: a little epigraph (exergue). As epigraph, I would like to study a text which may not be situated exactly within the reference points I will choose for most of this year. Nevertheless, it appears to me to be very exactly in line with, and to formulate in rigorous terms…

Frédéric GROS, “Foucault et « la société punitive »”, Pouvoirs, revue française d’études constitutionnelles et politiques, n°135, 135 – La Prison, p.5-14.  URL : http://www.revue-pouvoirs.fr/Foucault-et-la-societe-punitive.html

The full text of this article is available on the “Nouveau millénaire, Défis libertaires” site

Surveiller et Punir de Michel Foucault , publié en 1975, constitue sans aucun doute une des plus importantes contributions, à la fois historique, sociologique et philosophique, au problème de la prison. Le livre est devenu assez vite une référence et un classique, et on continue encore aujourd’hui à s’y référer largement. D’innombrables commentaires, exégèses, critiques, numéros spéciaux ont tenté, depuis bientôt un demi-siècle qu’il est paru, d’explorer ses enjeux théoriques et pratiques [1]. Alors plutôt que d’ajouter encore à cette masse critique, on voudrait, dans le cadre de cet article, présenter un ensemble d’analyses foucaldiennes peu connues, mais qui furent pourtant décisives pour l’écriture du livre de 1975. Il s’agit…