The Many Faces of Michel Foucault: An Analysis of the Evolution of his Conception of Identity Formation in the Modern World Through his Life and Works
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social sciences
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published 18/02/2008
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SummaryThroughout the course of his career as a historian, author, philosopher, and artist, Michel Foucault often shifted directions in his work, reinventing himself in the process and offering little explanation for his decisions to do so. Shortly after the publication of Madness and Civilization in 1961, he commanded, “Do not ask me who I am, and do no tell me to remain the same.” Foucault’s approach to his life and work, which he often referred to as an art form and an abstraction, consequently made any endeavor to provide a conclusive analysis of his life and career inherently antithetical to both his methodology and to the breadth of his subject matter. With that contradiction in mind, scholars have nevertheless remained devoted to investigating patterns, variations, and trends in both his work and approach. Thus, a slightly fragmented and openly speculative analysis of Foucault’s work has since become the most appropriate and effective way to study the multifaceted and inherently paradoxical nature of Michel Foucault’s work.
Table of Contents
- Foucault conceived of himself in a perpetual state of eternal evolution.
- Paul Rabinow, a scholar and former colleague of Foucault, provided a model for viewing the shift in Foucault's work.
- Foucault was further influenced by Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals.
- Foucault moved through Discipline and Punish chronologically.
- In continuing with his assessment of punishment, Foucault turned toward the creation of precise disciplines.
- Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon perhaps best illustrated Foucault's point regarding the creation of docile bodies.
- He questioned the increasingly humane treatment that most scholars praised.
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