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Foucault's rhetorical challenge to law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2012

Sarah Burgess*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Studies, University of San Francisco

Extract

For scholars of law, the turn to Michel Foucault's works almost inevitably invokes an apology, a qualification, or a caveat. With the acknowledgement that Foucault never offers a sustained account of law as an ‘object of inquiry’ comes a sense that his work might nonetheless offer important insight into contemporary forms of law and modern legal problems. The difficulty with which many scholars struggle is how to begin from the position of this ‘nevertheless’ or ‘however’ that marks the contingent ground from which they argue. That is, scholars grapple with how to make Foucault say something about law when what he says is indirect or culled from several different works.

Type
Review essay
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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