To celebrate #PrideMonth, the OUP Philosophy team honours Michel Foucault (1926-84) as its Philosopher of the Month. Foucault was one of the most influential French philosophers and historians of ideas, best known for his theories on discourses and the relation of power and knowledge. His seminal works, such as History of Madness (1961), Discipline and Punish (1975), and History of Sexuality (1976–84), examine the emergence of the powerful, state institutions (penal, scientific, and medical), and their mechanisms of control. They chart western attitudes towards the insane, criminals, and sexual deviants and consider the ways in which societies have penalized those who are outside the norms.
In History of Sexuality, Foucault famously put forward the view that the homosexual category did not exist until the 19th century. Although same sex relations have been practiced throughout history, people who practised homosexuality were not classified as homosexuals and did not think of themselves in terms of sexuality. He argued that, in fact, there was a proliferation of new medical, juridical, and psychological discourses concerning sex and obsessive discussions about sex, and these led to the construction of sexual identities, designed to regulate rather than suppress sexuality.
An early victim of AIDS, Foucault died in Paris on June 25, 1984 at the age of 57. His theories have had an enormous impact across a range of disciplines from philosophy, literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, gender studies, and queer theory.
Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography by David M. Halperin
Foucault: A Very Short Introduction by Gary Cutting
Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy Since 1960 by Gary Gutting
The Will to Punish by Didier Fassin and Edited by Christopher Kutz
Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction by Catherine Belsey
Sexual Dissidence by Jonathan Dollimore
Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies by Cressida J. Heyes
The Biopolitics of Gender by Jemima Repo
The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies edited by Jenny Helin, Tor Hernes, Daniel Hjorth, and Robin Holt
Classical Culture and Modern Masculinity by Daniel Orrells
Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction by Veronique Mottier
‘The Turn to Ethics: Derrida, Levinas, and Foucault’ by Gary Cutting in Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy Since 1960 from The Oxford Scholarship Online
“Michel Foucault (1926–1984)” by Richard Weiskopf and Hugh Willmott in The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies from Oxford Handbooks Online
“Modern Sex” in Foucault: A Very Short Introduction from Very Short Introductions
“Difference and Desire” in Postructuralism: A Very Short Introduction from Very Short Introductions
For more on this philosopher,explore our collection for blog posts, articles and reading suggestions. Follow us @OUPPhilosophy on Twitter.
