• Login
    View Item 
    •   Oxy Scholar Home
    • English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS)
    • English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS) URC Student Scholarship
    • View Item
    •   Oxy Scholar Home
    • English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS)
    • English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS) URC Student Scholarship
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Foucault's Externalized Interiors: The Concept of the Limit in The History of Madness

    Thumbnail
    Author
    Warchol, Caitlin
    Issue
    urc_student; urc_student
    Date
    2009-01-01 0:00
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    https://scholar.oxy.edu/handle/20.500.12711/916
    Abstract
    Michel Foucault's History of Madness is extensive but far from complete in its analysis of madness. In fact, it has become one of the most problematic texts in Foucault's bibliography. In the 1970s, Foucault attempted permanently to delete the original 1961 edition's contextual basis, removing the original preface from the French edition and nearly 300 pages from the English before republishing it as Madness and Civilization . The History of Madness becomes significant precisely because its author wanted his readers and critics to forget it-- or significant parts of it. Through his edits, Foucault places important parts of his theoretical past under erasure, but fails to fully excise his thematic concerns from the text. 1961 becomes doubly important: it is as Foucault's mentor, Georges Canguilhem, asserts, "the year that a truly great philosopher" emerged in France, but it also marks the point from which Foucault's later philosophy departed. It must be read as the inception of Foucault's analysis of power even though-perhaps because -it contradicts later divergent works. It is precisely the concept of deviation that concerns Foucault as he analyzes madness and reason. He asserts the division ( partage ) of reason from madness occurs as a distinct originary moment and also as a perpetual gesture. Partage generates a site for human inclusion through the exclusion of the inhuman exclusion and vice versa. It is a gesture that produces--and deconstructs-- limits. For Foucault, analysis of partage requires exploring the limits themselves.
    Collections
    • English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS) URC Student Scholarship

    Browse

    All of Oxy ScholarCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsJournal TitleJournal IssueThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsJournal TitleJournal Issue

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    DSpace software copyright © 2002-2021  DuraSpace
    Contact Us | Send Feedback
    DSpace Express is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV