I received Foucault’s La société punitive last week, and it was the only academic book I took with me on my Christmas trip to Ghana. As with these lecture courses generally I know I will read them several times, so I’m half-way through a first fairly quick read. I use the initial read to get an overall sense of the trajectory of the course and how it sits in relation to the courses that preceded it and those to come. In this instance the course immediately preceding it – Théories et institutions pénales – is not published, but Psychiatric Power and The Abnormals, which follow, have been available for some time.
I will be writing a review of this course for Berfrois, and there will be some discussion of it in Chapter One of my Foucault’s Last Decade book, so I will be returning to this text…
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