Foucault on the Arts and Letters

Reviews / Votes

This collection demonstrates the continuing productivity of Foucault's thinking for understanding a surprisingly wide range of the arts: literature, painting, photography, even dance and music. The essayists offer insightful commentaries on concepts such as archaeology, heterotopia, and the aesthetics of existence, while interpreting Foucault's explorations on figures from Shakespeare to Beckett, from Bosch to Bacon, and many others. -- Gary Shapiro, Tucker-Boatwright Professor in the Humanities-Philosophy, University of Richmond As transdisciplinary methods in the arts and sciences are ascending, Foucault emerges as a central thinker, again, because his oeuvre embodies knowledge that defies disciplinary boundaries. Foucault on the Arts and Letters comprises essays engaging a creative display of figures and concepts while enacting the very transdisciplinarity Foucault helped to craft. This volume should engender similar research well beyond Foucault alone. -- Michael Kelly, Professor of Philosophy, UNC Charlotte and President, Transdisciplinary Aesthetics Foundation This volume offers a long overdue examination of Michel Foucault's seminal critical engagements with primarily French aesthetics. It is part of a new wave in the evaluation of the philosopher's influential oeuvre, opening new doors and new ways of thinking and reading his work. -- Mark Franko, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Dance, Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University