Ebook: A Foucault primer: discourse, power, and the subject

1. Foucault's Counter-history of Ideas. General background: discourse, power and knowledge. Marxism. History of ideas. Structural linguistics. Critique -- 2. Discourse. Non-Foucauldian conceptions of discourse. Foucault's rethinking of discourse. Discourse and politics -- 3. Power. An ontology of the present. A disciplined society. Scientia sexualis. Analysis -- 4. The Subject. The sexual subject in ancient Greece. Sex and the self from Plato to Plutarch. Gender and sexuality: continuing problems.;In such seminal works as Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, the late philosopher Michel Foucault explored what our politics, our sexuality, our societal conventions, and our changing notions of truth told us about ourselves. In the process, Foucault garnered a reputation as one of the preeminent philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century, and has served as a primary influence on successive generations of philosophers and cultural critics. With A Foucault Primer, Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace bring Foucaults work into focus for the uninitiated. Written in crisp and concise prose. A Foucault Primer explicates the three central concepts of Foucauldian theory - discourse, power, and the subject - and suggests that Foucault has much yet to contribute to contemporary debate.