Michel Foucault Essays

What does Michele Foucault mean by deployment of sexuality? Part four of the book on History of Sexuality speaks of the deployment of sexuality (HS 75ff). It is said here that deployment of sexuality is a disciplinary apparatus which concerns power. Many regard this work as a straightforward extension of the genealogical approach of Discipline […]

Max Weber has claimed that power arises when given two people in a social relationship one will try to get himself in a better position to enforce his will on the other despite any form of resistance.   This then assumes that there is conflict between these two parties in the social relationship as both try […]

Panopticism Michael Foucault’s essay Panopticism was written much differently than other essays that I have read. Panopticism is intended to be, as mentioned by Hunter, a “meticulous tactical partitioning” (pg. 212). Foucault writes in such a different style then most of the authors that I have studied. He uses unique grammar and sentence structures that […]

Although Foucault’s work exhibits both consistent themes and shifts in direction and development, some critiques have highlighted disruptions, divergences, and gaps within his body of work. After the Archaeology of Knowledge and the cultural and political event known as May 68 in France, there appears to be a shift of emphasis in writings. Archaeology is […]

The general belief that scientific analysis is a means by which the world is to be known ‘truly’, ‘rationally’ and ‘progressively’ come to eminence during the late 18th century with the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ (Giddens 1987; Foucault 1970). This meant that as on the one hand, the biomedical model of explaining disease rose and became […]

The Enlightenment has frequently provided the context or impetus for a number of contemporary analyses in critical theory. The period of the Enlightenment, perhaps above any other, has been an attractive topic to a number of different theorists from various European countries and theoretical schools. Brewer, writing about Diderot, identifies “[w]hat is contemporary about the […]

In the text “What is an Author?” Michel Foucault tries to determine the relationship between an author and a text furthermore he deals with the writing itself and the definition of a work itself.Before Foucault investigates these subjects he refers to a quotation ofSamuel Beckett: “What does it matter who is speaking?”Foucault sees this sentence […]

Built signifiers concept and frame significances ( Dovey 1999, 12 ). The environment can therefore be honoring and gratifying and supply range for single development, like a university campus ; or it can be inhibitory and stabbing, like a prison. What is evident from this is not merely that reinforced elements respond to their physical […]

‘Wherever power exists, there is also opposition, and yet, this opposition is never separate from power itself’ (Foucault, 1978: 95-96). In the study of human sciences, the relationship between opposition and power has always been a major concern. Power acknowledges the existence of opposition, and in turn, opposition validates the presence of power. However, before […]

The book “The Archaeology of Knowledge” by Foucault offers a comprehensive analysis of his methodology, exploring concepts such as discourse, enunciative modes, constructs, schemes, and statements (Lindgren 2000:294). According to Foucault (cited in Hall 1997:44), ‘discourse’ refers to a group of statements that represent knowledge about a specific subject at a particular historical moment. Discourse […]

Michel Foucault’s study of Velazquez’s Las Meninas (1) was first published in the volume Les Mots et les choses in 1966 which was followed, in 1970, by the English translation titled The Order of Things. In “Las Meninas”, which is the title of the opening chapter of The Order of Things, Foucault focused on the […]

Michel Foucault argues that the expulsion of lepers and containment of the plague, in relation to Panopticism, do not have the same political vision. He suggests that people use power and knowledge to create a perfectly governed society, which he calls a “political dream.” However, this perception of the political dream has changed over time […]

Much as the issue on sexuality remains an unresolved conflict among medical experts, religious and judicial authorities, and hermaphrodites themselves under austere criticism in the 19th century, the search for identity in terms of “true sex” seems far from leaving the mystery which a French rural child of the mid-1900s had originally brought forth. On […]

As being developed by poststructuralism, feminism, lesbian & gay studies and even American pragmatist theory (Parker,2001; Seidman,1997), queer theory has become one of the most important theories, which contributes to the research of sociology, arts and organizations. On the one hand, queer theory has been used to study the relations between the sexuality, gender and […]

New Historicism Criticism attempts to relive a textual work through the time of the author who created it, taking into account norms, ideals, prejudices, and any other subjective experiences that the author of the time would hold. Basically, a literary theory that suggests that literature must be studied and interpreted within the context of both […]

The concept of surveillance has been defined by postmodernists as being a form of social control whereby individuals are monitored through various agencies e. g. the police, the government, etc. This notion also includes self-policing, which is developed through social norms directing individuals’ cognition and behaviour. Foucault believed discourses endeavour to create order from society […]

One of the most influential films in our lifetime is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It demonstrates many themes with one of the most important being on how institutions are governed and kept in order through the use of power. The best way to analyze this concept in this film, is to interpret Michel […]

The use of money evolved out of deeply rooted customs as is shown through past forms of money, e. g. cattle, shells, animal teeth, weapons, and jewelry. Marx explains commodity as any good or service that is produced by human labor and distributed as a product for general sale (Wallace and Wolf 2006:84). The notion […]

Michel Foucault’s theory, as presented in his article titled “What is an author”, centers around the concept of the “Author function”. Foucault’s theory argues that the notion of “an author” holds significant importance in the literary realm. In his 1969 essay, he posits that an author serves as a crucial organizing principle that shapes specific […]

In the book Foucault’s Pendulum by an Italian philosopher, critic and novelist Umberto Eco which was published first in 1988 and its translation appeared later which was done by William Weaver the book is divided in segments numbering about ten. It mostly refers to things like the alchemy, the Kabbalah stone and the theory of […]