FOUCAULT’S ANALYSIS OF MODERN GOVERNMENTALITY
BY THOMAS LEMKE
TRANSLATED BY ERIK BUTLER
OUT NOW
“Lemke offers a pedagogical and deeply intelligent interpretation of
Foucault’s complex ruminations on discipline, the state, sovereignty,
genealogy, subjectivation, Enlightenment, truth, critique and above
all power.” – Wendy Brown
https://www.versobooks.com/books/2830-foucault-s-analysis-of-modern-governmentality
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Tracking the development of Foucault’s key concepts
Lemke offers the most comprehensive and systematic account of Michel
Foucault’s work on power and government from 1970 until his death in
1984. He convincingly argues, using material that has only partly been
translated into English, that Foucault’s concern with ethics and forms
of subjectivation is always already integrated into his political
concerns and his analytics of power. The book also shows how the
concept of government was taken up in different lines of research in
France before it gave rise to “governmentality studies” in the
anglophone world.
A Critique of Political Reason provides a clear and well-structured
exposition that is theoretically challenging but also accessible for a
wider audience. Thus, the book can be read both as an original
examination of Foucault’s concept of government and as a general
introduction to his “genealogy of power’.
Thomas Lemke is Heisenberg Professor of Sociology at Goethe
University, Frankfurt. He has authored widely cited works on social
theory, with a focus on governmentality.
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“At last English readers have a chance to read Thomas Lemke’s
pioneering study of Foucault’s work on power, governmentality and
political reason. At the time of its original writing, Lemke was
working with largely unpublished and little-known materials. Although
Foucault’s lectures from this period are now all published and
translated, the book remains a fundamental work of enduring
importance. As well as demonstrating the links between the courses and
other writings, it shows Foucault’s reconfiguration of earlier radical
positions, and the crucial links between late work on ethics and the
question of government.” – Stuart Elden, Unversity of Warwick
“What good fortune to finally have Lemke’s prescient and careful study
of Foucault’s College de France lectures in English! Lemke offers a
pedagogical and deeply intelligent interpretation of Foucault’s
complex ruminations on discipline, the state, sovereignty, genealogy,
subjectivation, Enlightenment, truth, critique and above all power.” –
Wendy Brown
Paperback: ISBN 9781786636454/ £19.99
ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK
THE LIVES OF MICHEL FOUCAULT is available at a 30% discount
(paperback), 20% discount (library hardback) and 40% discount (ebook)
on our website. Purchasing details here:
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