Foucault

75-0916 — Milan IT: University of California Press 1983. First Edition. 8vo. Hard Covers with burgundy book cloth and dust jacket. Dust jacket has slight wear and discoloration on front and back covers and a small tear on the back cover. Very Good. 80 pp.Black and white plates.Translated and edited by James Harkness. What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by the French philosopher-historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction--"confronting them and within a common system a figure at once opposed and complementary."Foucault's brief but extraordinarily rich essay offers a startling highly provocative view of a painter whose influence and popularity continue to grow unchecked. This is Not a Pipe also throws a new piquantly dancing light on Foucault himself.About the Author:One of the most important theorists of the twentieth century Michel Foucault's 1926-1984 many influential books include Discipline and Punish The Archeology of Knowledge The History of Sexuality and The Discourse on Language.Provenance: From the library of Pasquale Iannetti. Milan, IT: University of California Press, 1983 hardcover