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issue of the institution is not addressed systematically anywhere
in the literature on Foucault, although it is everywhere to be found
in Foucault's writings. Foucault and the Critique of Institutions not only interprets the work of Foucault but also applies it to the
question of the institution. Foucault is a master at analyzing the
web of social relations ("power") that effectively shape ("normalize")
the modern individual. While these social relations are smaller and
finer than institutions, institutions are, by Foucault's account,
saturated with such relations. This study is the first sustained account
to follow up the implications of Foucault's provocative theses about
power for the analysis of institutions.
Foucault and the Critique of Institutions offers a set
of preliminary essays that raise basic questions about the theoretical
character of Foucault's thought and then several groups of other
essays that go on to take up the practical issues raised by his
work. Joseph Margolis and Jitendra Mohanty address one of the most
complex problems posed by Foucault's texts: his status as a philosopher.
Mark Poster explores the problem of the "self" in Foucault, while
Judith Butler focuses her searching investigation of the self on
its gendered nature. Joseph Rouse examines the functioning of the
natural sciences within the institutional setting of the university
and the academic profession, while Chuck Dyke and Mary Schmelzer
present vigorous critiques of the normalizing power of the university.
Robert Moore and Mark Yount offer original studies of the implications
of Foucault's work for the workplace, labor law, and affirmative
action. Finally, John Caputo studies Foucault's famous history of
madness and raises the question of the possibility of exercising
a "healing" and not merely a "normalizing" power in the mental hospital
and the church. |
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