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How to do things with Foucault (legally)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2021

Ben Golder
Ben Golder*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and Justice, University of New South Wales, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: b.golder@unsw.edu.au
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Abstract

In this essay, I discuss the legal theorist, Peter Fitzpatrick's, reading of philosopher Michel Foucault. My intent is to show how and why Foucault was important to Fitzpatrick and what this reveals about the latter's practices of reading. I characterise this particular reading in three ways. First, against the disciplinary tendency to assume that Foucault is more useful to lawyers for how he approaches law (as method), Fitzpatrick takes seriously what Foucault has to say about law as a conceptual matter. Fitzpatrick hence reads Foucault as a legal thinker. Second, Fitzpatrick does not restrict himself to the conventional archive of Foucauldian texts that legal scholars routinely consult, but reads more widely and creatively in his search for law. Third, Fitzpatrick reads Foucault open-endedly and generously rather than instrumentally or dismissively – textual ambivalence and contradiction are always, in his hands, sources of creative possibility and insight. This leads into some concluding reflections about Fitzpatrick's practice of critically rereading thinkers – all thinkers, not simply Foucault.

Keywords

Peter FitzpatrickMichel Foucaultpractices of reading
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 17 , Special Issue 1: Celebration of Peter Fitzpatrick and his Scholarship , March 2021 , pp. 44 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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