Foucault and Our Understanding

of Society and Social Theory

Joshua Dustin Watkins

Sociology 337: Modern Sociological Theory

Professor Sandra LeBlanc

April 20, 2024

2
 3

Foucault is an enigmatic figure and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century

(Sugrue, 1997). He was born in Poitiers, France, in 1926. His father and grandfather were both

respected surgeons, and he was expected to take up the family profession. Instead, however, he was

compelled to embark on an intriguing intellectual journey, studying psychology and philosophy;

ultimately producing transformative understandings of society and social theory (Kelly, 2015).

His works are boundary crossing and path-breaking, incorporating diverse elements of, and

regularly being referenced across, the humanities (Elden, 2013; Ritzer and Ryan, 2011; Ritzer and

Stepnisky, 2021). Foucault's methodology reflects C. Wright Mill's understanding expressed in The

Sociological Imagination; "intellectually, the central fact today is an increasing fluidity of boundary

lines; conceptions move with increasing ease from one discipline to another" (2000, 139). This is but

one way in which his approach to social theory was unique compared to traditional sociologists

(Roderick, 1993). It is therefore the purpose of this essay to chronicle these unique and transformative

aspects of his work beginning with Madness and Civilization, and concluding with his History of

Sexuality.

To begin, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (a condensed

version of his doctoral thesis) was originally published in 1961 in France, and in English in 1965. This

book, the first of Foucault's, is similar to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. It sees a split between

reason and unreason akin to Nietzsche’s Apollonian/Dionysian differentiation. Also, the French history

and philosophy of science, especially Gaston Bachelard's “epistemological rupture,” Georges

Canguilhem's emphasis on the separation of the normal from the pathological; and Marx's historical

analysis of social division were all vital influences in this work and throughout Foucault's corpus

(Kelly, 2015).

Madness and Civilization examines the history of our modern conceptualization of mental

illness as well as its consequences. By analyzing 19th-century archival evidence Foucault came to
 4

reject the standard view of the time that psychiatry had "[liberated] [...] the mad from the ignorance and

brutality of preceding ages." Rather, he came to realize that the medicalization of madness did not

generally constitute an improvement, per se. In contrast, he pointed to the conception of madness in the

Renaissance which more positively—or at least less problematically—saw the mad as being "in

contact with the mysterious forces of cosmic tragedy." He also examined the transitional phase of the

17th and 18th-century in which madness was viewed as the repudiation of reason in favor of animality.

Ultimately, the pathologization of those deemed mentally ill, and the seemingly neutral scientific

discourse employed, merely provided a veneer for bourgeoisie domination of potentially problematic

populations and ways of being (Gutting, 2022; Sugrue, 1997). It did so by isolating such populations

from society en mass, incarcerating them in hospitals, prisons, and workhouses during what Foucault

referred to as The Great Confinement (Foucault, 1988, pp. 38-39). As Foucault scholar Mark Kelly

notes, "The History of Madness thus sets the pattern for most of Foucault’s works by being concerned

with discrete changes in a given area of social life at particular points in history" (2015).

Next, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, was originally published

in France in 1963, and in English in 1973. This work, similar to Madness and Civilization explores—

instead of madness—the historical emergence of medical knowledge and practice, again via an analysis

of the discourse as found in associated documents. Around the time of the French Revolution a

"transformation of social institutions and political imperatives combined to produce modern

institutional medicine" (Kelly, 2015). This transformation also produced the anatomo-clinical gaze

(Athabasca 2024), which dispassionately and objectively observes patients and their conditions, "in the

service of the demographic needs of society;" and ultimately generated the great break in Western

medicine (Kelly, 2015; Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2021, 426).

Foucault's following work, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, was

originally published in France in 1966 and in English in 1970. It explicitly defines the methodology
 5

Foucault had been previously employing: archaeology. And he applies archaeology again; this time to

the human sciences which encompass "an interdisciplinary space for the reflection on the 'man' who is

the subject of more mainstream scientific knowledge such as anthropology, history, and, indeed,

philosophy." These human sciences include, for example, "psychology, sociology, and the history of

culture" (Kelly, 2015).

However, The Order of Things analyses the prehistory of the human sciences and their

discourses. In doing so it traces Western epistemology through a number of transformations giving rise

to differing épistémès—underlying systems which constitute legitimate knowledge. The two most

important epistemic transformations in the West occur, according to Foucault, at the start of the 17th

century, giving rise to the Classical period; and at the beginning of the 19th century, giving rise to the

Modern period (Kelly, 2015).

Before the Classical period, "Western knowledge [was] a rather disorganized mass of different

kinds of knowledge (superstitious, religious, philosophical), with the work of science being to note all

kinds of resemblances." With the Classical épistémè, however, the inclination towards categorization

led to more bounded disciplines (Kelly, 2015). The Classical épistémès takes knowledge as being

representative, in an abstract sense, of its object; "the map is a useful model" (Gutting, 2022).

Kant, representative of a larger overarching epistemic trend, questioned "whether ideas do in

fact represent their objects," undermining the status of ideas as "unproblematic vehicles of knowledge"

(Gutting, 2022). Gradually a reflexive understanding arose in which the "individual [was] conceived

simultaneously as both subject and object;" (Kelly, 2015). This, by the end of the 18th century, had

began to inspire a new focus on language and the hidden, underlying logics of knowledges; leading to

understandings as diverse as "the dialectical view of history, psychoanalysis, and Darwinian evolution"

(Ibid., 2015). Foucault critiqued this mode of thinking as tending to dichotomize "what is 'the Same'

and what is other; with the latter usually excluded from scientific inquiry," and having a bias towards
 6

taking man—the modern state's governable and abstract population—as the object of investigation

(Ibid., 2015). Foucault's own work, with its focus on the underlying logics of knowledges, arguably

falls partly within this category.

This epistemic logic which takes man as its object, however, according to Foucault, opens the

door to man's eventual transcendence; as some of these sciences, such as psychoanalysis, investigate

realities which are too deep to be fully properly explored within such a limited perspective. Foucault's

work is also in line with this transcendence. This epistemic shift underlies the development in recent

times of interdisciplinary methodologies, such as New Materialism (Coole, 2010). Coole, author of

New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics states, "interestingly, some indication of how new

materialists might investigate both the quotidian and structural dimensions of late capitalism can

already be found in work by Althusser and Foucault" (2010, 32).

Another example of recent development along these lines is Posthumanism, which, similar to

New Materialism rejects anthropocentrism, considering humanity within a broader web of

technological, urban, social, and political realities (Braidotti, 2013, 40 and 55-105). In regards to

Foucault's influence, Braidotti states: "by the time Michel Foucault published his ground-breaking

critique of Humanism in The Order of Things (1970), the question of what, if anything, was the idea of

‘the human’ was circulating in the radical discourses of the time and had set the anti-humanist agenda

for an array of political groups" (Ibid., 23). Foucault's discursive-epistemological investigations, which

a "[reject] the idea of an autonomous, meaning-giving subject" (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2021), were

leading to a higher perspective from which to consider, create, and critique knowledge, and humanity

itself.

Foucault's next book The Archaeology of Knowledge: And the Discourse on Language, was

published in France in 1969, and in English in 1970. It is his most conceptual work. Rather than

historical analysis, it looks at language on its own, examining "discrete linguistic events, which he calls
 7

'statements'" to understand how they relate (Kelly, 2015). Foucault sees language as influenced by

"extra-linguistic realities," but ultimately "governed by a 'system of its [own] functioning'" (Ibid., 2015)

outside "grammar and logic, [which] [operates] beneath the consciousness of individual subjects and

[defines] a system of conceptual possibilities that determines the boundaries of thought in a given

domain and period" (Gutting 2022). Foucault calls this the archive and archaeology entails its

excavation (Kelly, 2015).

Foucault then, in 1969, produced an essay titled "What is an Author?" He suggests that the

author, rather than being a sovereign and transcendent creator, is a historically and socially constructed

artifact operating at a nexus of influences such as discursive systems. This is similar in theme to

another essay published earlier, in 1967, by Roland Barthes, titled "The Death of the Author." Though

Barthes instead emphasizes giving primacy to the reader, over the author, in terms of the text's

interpretation (1977). These works both contributed to the Postmodern death of the author.

Next came "The Order of Discourse" in 1970. It is more political, being in part a response to the

volatile political climate of France, 1968. Also, we find the methodology which Foucault calls

genealogy (after Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals) expressed and defined for the first time. Genealogy

can be defined as doing "the 'history of the present,' [...] [and] is an explanation of where we have come

from, [...] to tell us how our current situation originated, [...] motivated by contemporary concerns"

(Kelly, 2015). Also, genealogy emphasizes "complex, mundane, inglorious origins," which are "in no

way part of any grand scheme of progressive history." It stresses that any particular system of thought

—its fundamental composition and dynamic having been revealed by archaeology—was merely an

outcome of contingent historical developments, rather than a rational and inevitable outcome (Gutting,

2022). This methodology is further employed in the lectures, books, and interviews which followed.

The anthology Power/Knowledge collects his thought from 1972 to 1977, and "is closely linked

to the themes and arguments" presented in his 1975 work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
 8

Prison, to be discussed afterward. Gordon Collin, the editor, states that it focuses on "the problematic

of 'pouvoir-savoir', power and knowledge, which has given this book its title" (Foucault, 1980, vii and

ix). It examines "power at its extremities, in its ultimate destinations, with those points where it

becomes capillary, that is, in its more regional and local forms and institutions;" as opposed to that

which emanates from central, "regulated, and legitimate forms" (Foucault, 1980, 96). Also the analysis

disregards "conscious intention or decision," instead focusing on "processes which subject our bodies,

govern our gestures, [and] dictate our behaviours etc." (Ibid., 97).

The microphysics/politics of power therefore, is how "subjects are gradually, progressively,

really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organisms, forces, energies, materials,

desires, thoughts etc." (Foucault, 1980, 97). Similarly, bio-power, or somato-power, is a "formative

matrix" which "[penetrates] the body in depth" (Ibid., 186). Foucault also points out that individuals are

not only sites where power is applied, but also operate as vehicles productively applying power

themselves (Ibid., 98).

Foucault's next book, the well-known, highly influential Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the

Prison, was published in France in 1975, and in English in 1978. Its title and methodology mirror that

of The Birth of the Clinic (both titles deriving from Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy), though it is more

genealogical.

It traces the development of the carceral system to the 17th century, where the prison system

evolved as an alternative method to the system of punishment employed by medieval societies.

Medieval, or sovereign societies, would punish to avenge an affront to the power of the sovereign;

naturally Foucault defines the power in such societies as sovereign power (Foucault, 1995, 36). Such

punishment would entail torturous violence applied publicly to the offender's body as a spectacle of

justice (Roderick, 1993). However, this also allowed the crowd to sympathize with the offender's

suffering, and often riots would break out afterward, creating negative sentiment towards the sovereign.
 9

Gradually, and subconsciously—helping to avoid such potentially problematic spectacle—the

development of the prison system and its associated reform "becomes a vehicle of more effective

control: 'to punish less, perhaps; but certainly to punish better'" (Gutting, 2022). This new mode of

punishment, "becomes the model for control of an entire society, with factories, hospitals, and schools

modeled on the modern prison" and comes to make up a carceral archipelago (Ibid.; Foucault 1995,

297-301). This is what he terms disciplinary power (Foucault, 1995).

Another important concept presented in Discipline and Punish, is panopticism. This concept

stems from a style of prison architecture and its associated mode of surveillance developed by the late

18th, early 19th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In the Panopticon "each inmate is always visible

to a guard situated in a central tower. Guards do not in fact always see each inmate; the point is that

they could [...] [therefore] [inmates] must behave as if they are always seen and observed. As a result,

control is achieved more by the possibility of internal monitoring of those controlled" (Gutting, 2022).

For Foucault, this is a key aspect of modern disciplinary power which is increasingly

ubiquitous; it is present in schools, hospitals, shopping malls, etc. It is also integrated at the micro level

into the subjects themselves, who therefore observe and constrain their own behavior, perspectives, and

attitudes, as well as those of others (Gutting, 2022). This disciplinary power ultimately produces

manageable, compliant docile bodies (Kelly, 2015).

Before his early death in 1984, Foucault turned his critical and probing intellect toward the

topic of sexuality. The first volume of this multi-volume work was published in France in 1976, and in

English in 1978. Titled The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: The Will to Knowledge, it served as an

introduction, and focused on various concerns of modern sexuality including "children, women,

'perverts,' [and] population" (Gutting 2022). Kelly, author of The Political Philosophy of Michel

Foucault states that, "The Will to Knowledge is an extraordinarily influential work, perhaps Foucault’s

most influential" (2015). Similar to his previous works, he subjects different historical modes of
 10

conceiving sexuality to genealogical analysis. However, as sexuality involves deep aspects of our

subjective selfhood, the domination which emanates from scientific observation of, and discourse on,

sexuality is particularly potent. In this case people "are controlled not only as objects of disciplines but

also as self-scrutinizing and self-forming subjects" (Gutting. 2022; Kelly, 2015). Ultimately, "sexuality

becomes an essential construct in determining not only moral worth, but also health, desire, and

identity, [as] subjects are further obligated to tell the truth about themselves by confessing the details of

their sexuality." This takes on a secularized religious dynamic where the doctor or psychiatrist takes the

place of the priest (Gutting, 2022).

Foucault explains that the notion that modern society represses sex is mistaken. In fact, he

argues that the opposite is the case; there has, in fact, been a great expansion of sexual discourse,

particularly that which is "medical, juridical and psychological." This, rather, leads to our society

becoming more sexualized. Also, because all sexuality is inherently based within enculturated

experience and understanding, the society's general view that there is a natural, repressed sexuality

needing to be liberated, is incorrect (Gutting, 2022). Foucault again points out in this work that power

is not only repressive, but that it is also productive; and works by producing "cultural normative

practices and scientific discourses, [and] the ways in which we experience and conceive of our

sexuality" (Ibid.). This perspective influenced social constructivist understandings of sexuality, gender,

and identity. For example, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

makes frequent reference to Foucault's understandings (2002). Also, Donna Haraway states in her

"Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" that

"[Michel] Foucault's biopolitics is a flaccid premonition of cyborg politics;" where cyborg politics

looks forward to "unclosed constructions of personal and collective selves" (Haraway, 1991, 1 and 8).

Foucault completed Volumes II and III of The History of Sexuality, and nearly completed

Volume IV, all of which were published after his death in 1984. Volume II, published in France in 1984,
 11

and in English in 1985; was subtitled The Use of Pleasure. Volume III, published in France in 1984,

and in English in 1986; was subtitled The Care of Self. And finally, Volume IV published in draft form

in France in 2018, and in English in 2021 was subtitled Confessions of the Flesh. These works continue

"to investigate how individuals were led to practice, on themselves and on others, a hermeneutics of

desire; [...] how, for centuries, Western man had been brought to recognize himself as a subject of

desire" (Foucault, 1990, 5-6). They also continue to examine the related power-knowledge dynamics.

And Foucault questions: "how, why, and in what forms was sexuality constituted as a moral domain?

Why this ethical concern that was so persistent despite its varying forms and intensity? Why this

'problematization'?" (Ibid., 10). The historical period analyzed ranges from the Greco-Roman period

through to early Christianity. Kelly notes how influential Foucault's thought has been: "concerns with

sexuality, bodies, and norms form a potent mix that has, via the work of Judith Butler in particular,

been one of the main influences on contemporary feminist thought, as well as influential in diverse

areas of the humanities and social sciences" (2015).

Also, while most of Foucault's works had largely bracketed questions of how the state and such

institutions directly exercise power, his later work addresses these questions, particularly the concept of

governmentality. Two collections of his lectures are of note, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at

the Collège de France 1977-1978, and The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France,

1978-1979. These works examine the intersection of statecraft and what Foucault terms the government

of the self. These works were also very influential, and form the "basis for what is effectively an entire

school of sociology and political theory" (Kelly 2015).

Foucault's understanding also influenced Deleuze's philosophy. Interestingly, Paul Bové—

author of the forward to Deleuze's work Foucault—quotes Foucault as saying, "'perhaps one day this

century will be known as Deleuzian" (Deleuze, 1988, xlii). Beyond Deleuze writing about him directly

in the eponymous Foucault, his influence is also foundational to Deleuze's essay "Postscript on
 12

Societies of Control" (1992). "Postscript" extrapolates Foucault's understanding of the transition from

sovereign societies to disciplinary societies to what Deleuze calls control societies. This perspective

only increases in relevance, as the methods by which subjectivities and docile bodies are formed and

governed increasingly become the kind belonging to control societies. These modes of control, often

based in technology, are "ultrarapid," "free-floating," "inseparable," modulatory, gaseous, and

"[perpetually] [metastable]" (Deleuze, 1992). One simple example is the control society's house arrest

and associated ankle monitor, which an be considered in contrast to the discipline society's

imprisonment and associated prison cell.

To begin summarizing the changed perspectives inspired by Foucault, he emphasized the

discontinuity of historical development, thereby contributing to the Postmodern death of grand

narrative. And as Ritzer and Stepnisky state, "[he] has no sense of some deep, ultimate truth; there are

simply ever more layers to be peeled away," therefore contributing to the Postmodern death of Truth

(2021, 421-422). And, as noted, his essay "What is an Author" contributed to the Postmodern death of

the author, undermining the transcendent subject, author, or researcher.

Also, his structuralist/post-structuralist (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2021) analyses show how

discourses generate, and relate to normative, subjectivizing power-knowledge dynamics which work to

categorize and marginalize certain groups seen as problematic from the perspective of the bourgeoisie.

This has given rise to a lifting up and centering of subaltern discourses, such as in "post-colonial

discourse theory, [or] multicultural theory," etc. (Athabasca University, 2024). It also contributed to the

rise of New Materialism, and Posthumanism (Sugrue, 1997); and his understanding of social

constructivism contributed significantly to the development of queer and gender studies (Ritzer and

Ryan, 2011). His Madness and Civilization "[gave] birth to the anti-psychiatry movement," and

relatedly contributed to the de-institutionalization of marginalized/incarcerated groups (Sugrue, 1997).

His understanding of the microphysics of bio-politics of power significantly impacted social theorists'
 13

understanding of power, which previously had been more attuned to its the top down institutional

manifestations. Conversely his ideas regarding the state and governmentality added to the repertoire of

macro level approaches to power.

Foucault's work was different from that of traditional sociologists in that he freely borrowed

from the methods and materials of any discipline. His approach was also different in that it—similar to

Bruno Latour's actor-network theory (2007), or Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome (2005)—blurred the

dichotomy of the micro/macro hierarchy.

In conclusion, this all examples Foucault's transformative influence which, via his distinct

methodology and perspective, drastically changed our understanding of society and social theory. This

essay is not—nor could it be—exhaustive. His influence is too intense, widespread, and diverse; it is

nigh impossible to trace all of its threads, to name all of its potential offspring, or delineate all the

resultant realities. Foucault's work will continue to be impactful long into the foreseeable future; where

it may finally echo out to imperceptibility. And even then, it may perhaps at some unknowable point be

revived; just as Duchamp's art took on renewed meaning for the (re)generation of the 1960s (Lebel,

2024).
 References

Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." In Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath.

London: Fontana, 1977. (Original work published 1967) Accessed April 17, 2024.

https://sites.tufts.edu/english292b/files/2012/01/Barthes-The-Death-of-the-Author.pdf.

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. Accessed April 17, 2023.

https://ageingcompanions.constantvzw.org/books/The_Posthuman_-_Rosi_Braidotti.pdf.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. 2002.

(Originally published 1990). Accessed April 17, 2024.

https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf.

Christensen, Gerd. "Three Concepts of Power: Foucault, Bourdieu, and Habermas." Power and

Education 0, no. 0 (2023): https://doi.org/10.1177/17577438231187129.

Cool, Diana. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham: Duke University Press,

2010. Accessed April 19, 2024. https://memoof.me/download/625/pdf/625.pdf.

Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. Translated by Seán Hand. Edited by Seán Hand. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 1988. (Originally published in French, 1986). Reprint, 2007. Accessed April

20, 2024. https://altexploit.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/gilles-deleuze-sean-

hand-foucault-university-of-minnesota-press-1988.pdf.

Deleuze, Gilles. "Postscript on Societies of Control." October 59 (1992): 3-7. Accessed April 20, 2024.

https://cidadeinseguranca.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 2005. (Originally published 1987). Accessed April 18, 2024.

https://culturetechnologypolitics.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/

deleuze_guattari_a-thousand-plateaus-geologyofmorals.pdf.

Elden, Stuart. "How Should We Do the History of Territory?" Territory, Politics, Governance 1, no. 1

(2013): 5-20. doi:10.1080/21622671.2012.733317.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 2nd ed. Translated by Alan Sheridan.

New York: Vintage Books, 1995. (Original work published 1975). Accessed April 17, 2024.

https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the

_Prison_1977_1995.pdf.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Vol. II: The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley.

New York: Vintage Books, 1990. (Originally published 1984). Accessed April 18, 2024.

https://monoskop.org/images/a/a3/Foucault_Michel_The_History_of_Sexuality_2_The_Use_of

_Pleasure.pdf.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by

Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books, 1988. (Original work published 1969). Accessed

April 17, 2024.

https://monoskop.org/images/1/14/Foucault_Michel_Madness_and_Civilization_A_History_of

_Insanity_in_the_Age_of_Reason.pdf.

Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977. Translated by

Collin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper. Edited by Collin Gordon. New

York: Pantheon Books. 1980. Accessed April 17, 2024.

https://monoskop.org/images/5/5d/Foucault_Michel_Power_Knowledge_Selected_Interviews_a

nd_Other_Writings_1972-1977.pdf.

Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?" In Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology. Translated by Robert

Hurley and Others. Edited by James D. Faubion, 205-222. New York: The New Press, 1998.

(Original work published 1969). Accessed April 17, 2024.

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Foucault_Author.pdf.

Gutting, Gary. "Michel Foucault." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified 2022.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/.
Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late

Twentieth Century." In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York:

Routledge, 1991. (Originally published in Socialist Review, no. 80, 1985). Accessed April 18,

2024. https://www.sfu.ca/~decaste/OISE/page2/files/HarawayCyborg.pdf.

Kelly, Mark. "Michel Foucault" In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed April 10, 2015.

https://iep.utm.edu/foucault/.

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2007.

Lebel, Robert. "Marcel Duchamp." Encyclopedia Britannica. March 12, 2024. Accessed April 20,

2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcel-Duchamp.

Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2000. (Originally published 1959). Accessed April 20, 2024.

https://ratical.org/ratville/AoS/TheSociologicalImagination.pdf.

"Noam Chomsky." Google Scholar. Google. Accessed April 17, 2024.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=rbgNVw0AAAAJ.

Ritzer, Georg, and J. Michael Ryan, eds. The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology. Hoboken: Wiley-

Blackwell, 2011. Kindle.

Ritzer, Georg, and Jeffery Stepnisky. Modern Sociological Theory. 9th ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage

Publishing, 2022. Vitalsource Bookshelf.

"Study Guide: Unit 12, Postmodern Social Theorists." Soci 337: Modern Sociological Theory in the

20th Century: The Age of Grand Theory. (Rev. C6). Athabasca University. Accessed April 17,

2024.

Sugrue, Michael. "Part Six - Modernism and the Age of Analysis: Conclusions; Foucault: Power,

Knowledge, and Post-Structuralism." The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition

lecture series. YouTube video, Michael Sugrue channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

 v=KY9LwCeP7Ug&t=11s. Produced by The Teaching Company. Uploaded February 16, 2021.

Accessed April 10, 2024. Original publication date, 1997.

Roderick, Rick. "Part Six - Foucault and the Disappearance of the Human." The Disappearance of the

Human lecture series. YouTube video, The Partially Examined Life channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP79SfCfRzo&t=1s. Uploaded February 16, 2021.

Produced by The Teaching Company. Accessed April 10, 2024. Original publication date, 1993.