Foucault and Feminism

Library Journal

This is yet another addition to a growing body of literature on the French theorist that includes Jana Sawicki's Discipling the Body: Feminism, Power and the Body (Routledge, 1991), James Miller's The Passion of Michel Foucault ( LJ 1/93), Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby's Feminism and Foucault (Northeastern Univ. Pr., 1988), and Didier Eribon's Michel Foucault (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1991). Arguing against critics who believe that Foucault's notion of docile bodies is inadequate for feminist theory, McNay contends that the ethics of the self that emerges from Foucault's later work offers clear convergence between Foucauldian and feminist thought. McNay's detailed argument is often obscured by repetition and awkward writing, but her book offers an important counterpoint to feminist criticism of Foucault. The author, a research fellow at St. John's College, Oxford, has also provided a valuable bibliography. This book is recommended for academic libraries with large collections in critical theory.-- Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio