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jilltxt's review against another edition
4.0
Well. I'm a lot more skeptical about Foucault and his theories after reading this. His draw towards death, torture, limit-experiences, sado-masochism and violence was, well, if true (and it seems to match other accounts) disturbing, as are many of his actions and statements. It's not the consensual sado-masochistic sex in San Francisco bath houses that upsets me (although statements he made that suggest he knew he had HIV while continuing to have unprotected sex are worrying, but who knows) it's his lust for violent revolution, his arguments for violence instead of law during said revolution, his arguments that adults should be allowed to have sex with 12-year-olds because of the children's right to autonomy, his hiring of his lover instead of a better-qualified woman because "we don't like old maids" or his argument that being raped is no worse than being punched in the face. I mean, I read and was shocked at but also sort of philosophically moved by those awful descriptions of torture in Discipline and Punish, but this man also taught a whole university course on a murderer who brutally killed his own mother and siblings to "set his father free". There is literally no way I would be able to think the way Foucault thought. And that confuses me since I've read and enjoyed much of his work since I was an undergrad, and I still use his ideas in my own research. Should I? Maybe not. I'm glad I've read this book but not entirely sure what I'll do with my new knowledge about the researcher who is LITERALLY the most cited man in the world.
mburnamfink's review against another edition
4.0
Every semester when finals roll around, I sigh and reach for my Foucault shelf, which is what I deserve for being a grad student studying mental illness and institutional power. But after a few years of cursing his name, I figured it was time to find out who this Foucault guy was, and if his life could shed any insight on his work.
In that regard, James Miller makes a heroic attempt to contextualize the events of Foucault's life with his scholarship. I say heroic, because Foucault was an evasive man who deliberately sought the death of the author in his public statements, and because his texts are legendarily dense. Miller more or less succeeds, finding in Foucault an attempt to fulfill the Nietzschean quest to "become oneself" through the practice of "limit-experiences" in radical politics, physical pleasure/pain, intellectual rigor, and ultimately death.
So why only four stars? Well, first, I only half buy it. I'm not an expert in Foucault scholarship by any means, but somehow it seems a little pat. And second, this is a dense book, and took me several weeks to trudge through. Someone with a lesser interest in Foucault might give up. Somebody with greater knowledge might through the book through a window.
In that regard, James Miller makes a heroic attempt to contextualize the events of Foucault's life with his scholarship. I say heroic, because Foucault was an evasive man who deliberately sought the death of the author in his public statements, and because his texts are legendarily dense. Miller more or less succeeds, finding in Foucault an attempt to fulfill the Nietzschean quest to "become oneself" through the practice of "limit-experiences" in radical politics, physical pleasure/pain, intellectual rigor, and ultimately death.
So why only four stars? Well, first, I only half buy it. I'm not an expert in Foucault scholarship by any means, but somehow it seems a little pat. And second, this is a dense book, and took me several weeks to trudge through. Someone with a lesser interest in Foucault might give up. Somebody with greater knowledge might through the book through a window.
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