Abstract

Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish is one of the best-selling works of critical theory and a key text on many undergraduate courses. However, it is a long, difficult text which makes Anne Schwan and Stephen Shapiro's excellent step-by-step reading guide a welcome addition to the How to Read Theory series.

Undergraduates across a wide range of disciplines are expected to have a solid understanding of Foucault's key terms, which have become commonplace in critical thinking today. While there are many texts that survey Foucault's thought, these are often more general overviews or biographical précis that give little in the way of robust explanation and discussion.

In contrast, Schwan and Shapiro take a plain-speaking, yet detailed, approach, specifically designed to give students a thorough understanding of one of the most influential texts in contemporary cultural theory.
'An excellent aid to Foucault's classic text'
Professor Keith Ansell-Pearson, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick
'[A] highly readable guide to one of Foucault's best-known but often misinterpreted works'
Clare O'Farrell, author of Michel Foucault (2005) and founding editor of Foucault Studies
'A useful and illuminating companion to Foucault's book, and will clarify much that remains puzzling about this proteiform thinker, dispelling misunderstandings and sending the reader on new and more fruitful paths'
Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Jr. Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University