Reading Foucault
Term:
Spring 2012
Subject Code:
GLIB
Course Number:
5321
Through a close reading of one major text, Madness and Civilization, this
seminar explores the problem of how to enter the imaginative universe of
a literary and philosophical work. Using essays by Jean Starobinski and
Borges as signposts, we begin by reading the (abridged) English translation
of Foucault’s masterpiece straight through. Afterwards, we briefly compare
one recent historiographic account of madness to that of Foucault’s book.
By raising doubts about Foucault’s concern for empirical accuracy, we raise
questions about the philosophical and literary subtexts of his work. In
order to clarify, we also read several contemporary essays by Foucault (on
Binswanger, and on the madness of Hoelderlin), and discuss literature and
art implicitly or explicitly aluded to in Madness and Civilization, including
Plato’s Phaedrus, Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly, Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew,
Sade’s Justine, Nerval’s Aurelia, Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, essays by Andre
Breton and Antonin Artaud, and paintings by Bosch, Goya, and Van
Gogh. Finally, we review some contemporary commentaries on Foucault by
Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot, and Jacques Derrida. At the end of the
course, we return to Madness and Civilization. Does the knowledge we have
acquired change our readings of Foucault’s masterpiece?
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