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Title: Michel Foucault by David R. Shumway ISBN: 0-8139-1415-9 Publisher: University Press of Virginia Pub. Date: 01 September, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.50

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: A giant in the realm of Foucault Scholarhip
Comment: David R. Shumway does a brief and very helpful "overview" of Foucault for the academic beginner. It is an academic book that digs -- especially into The Order of Things - Foucault's groundbreaking piece concerning history and its tropic structures. Shumway has a real handle on the issue of "discourse." Shumway succinctly put it this way. "Discourse is no longer to be understood as the expression of the speaker, but rather the speaker is to be understood as part of discursive practice." (Shumway, 1989: 102) Power is also examined and Shumway points out that "it is the power of institutions and not the truth of discourse that excludes its false competitors. (Shumway, 1989: 104) Foucault is a historian of ideas, and his interest is in the way in which ideas are configured by the techniques, practices and rituals of institutions. According to Shumway, for Foucault, power is not something that is solely retained by institutions; rather power is dispersed and agreed to and reinforced by repetition and resistance. This is not an easy concept to grasp and Shumway makes it accessible to the novice scholar like myself. He points out that for Foucault, in the case of sexuality, the act of Confession -- first embraced by the Roman Catholic Church, and then later by psychoanalysts -- produced a kind of talk or "discourse" about sex that helped to shape the history of sexuality. Lastly, according to Shumway, Foucault advocates as a mode of political dissent, moving away from the disciplinary mindset. In the realm of good introductions/framing of Foucault discourse/authorial extension/examination, this books ranks among the giants and is a must for all serious Foucault scholars.

Miguel Llora