The passion of Michel Foucault

Shortly before his death in 1984, Michel Foucault defended his career as one of the most controversial thinkers of our time. "The philosophical life," he declared, "is the animality of being human, renewed as a challenge, practiced as an exercise - and thrown in the face of others as a scandal." Now, for the first time, here is a book that explores the true challenge - and "scandal"--Of Foucault's life and work. Based on extensive new research and a bold. Reinterpretation of the man and his texts, The Passion of Michel Foucault is a startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers. It chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity. Exploring the wider context of his work, it conjures up the heyday of structuralism in Paris and the electrifying chaos of the strikes in. May 1968. It recounts Foucault's debates with Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida, and his encounters with Noam Chomsky and Jurgen Habermas. And in revelations as fascinating as they may be shocking to some readers, The Passion of Michel Foucault provides the first detailed account of Foucault's lifelong obsession with death, suicide, drugs, and sadomasochistic eroticism - even under the mounting threat of AIDS in the 1980s. With the subtlety and sure grasp of history, Politics, and philosophy that have marked his earlier books, James Miller has written a landmark study sure to provoke debate among readers everywhere.