On The Government of the Living Lectures at the Collège de France, 1979-1980

by Foucault, Michel; Davidson, Arnold I.; Burchell, Graham

• ISBN13: 9781403986627
• ISBN10: 1403986622
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-09-09
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Why and how, Foucault asks, does the exercise of power as government demand not only acts of obedience and submission, but 'truth acts' in which individuals subject to relations of power are also required to be subjects in procedures of truth-telling? How and why are subjects required not just to tell the truth, but to tell the truth about themselves? These questions lead to a re-reading of Sophocles' Oedipus the King and, through an examination of the texts of Tertullian, Cassian, and others, to an analysis of the 'truth acts' in early Christian practices of baptism, penance, and spiritual direction.

Author Biography

Michel Foucault, acknowledged as the pre-eminent philosopher of France in the 1970s and 1980s, continues to have enormous impact throughout the world in many disciplines.

Arnold I. Davidson, Series Editor, is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, USA, and Professor of the Philosophy of Cultures at the Università Ca'Foscari, Venice. He is co-editor of the volume Michel Foucault: Philosophie.

Graham Burchell is a translator. As well as translating Foucault's lectures at the Collège de France he has written essays on Foucault's work and was an editor of and contributor to the influential volume The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality.

Table of Contents

Foreword: François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana
Translator's Note
Abbreviations
1. 9 January 1980
2. 16 January 1980
3. 23 January 1980
4. 30 January 1980
5. 6 February 1980
6. 13 February 1980
7. 20 February 1980
8. 27 February 1980
9. 5 March 1980
10. 12 March 1980
11. 19 March 1980
12. 16 March 1980
Course Summary
Course Context
Index of Greek Terms
Index of Notions
Index of Names