"Work and Labor" Reading Plan for Fall 2025

Theme for AY 25-26: Work and Labor 

Fall Term Reading Course: Work and Labor in Foucault’s Writings, 1966-1979

 

Week            Reading 

1	The Order of Things (1966) Part II, ch. 7 – “The Limits of Representations,” esp. sections 1 (introduction) and 2 (on the introduction of labor to political economy and, specifically, Adam Smith), pp. 217-226. Part II, ch. 8 – “Labour, Life, Language,” esp. sections 1 (introduction to new empiricities) and 2 (on Ricardo, Smith and Quesney), pp. 250-263.
2	The Punitive Society (1972-73, posth. pub.) 17 January lecture – Political econ. of vagabondage; criminal as social enemy
3	24 January lecture – Criminal as social enemy; comparing prison-form (discipline) and wage-form (capitalism)
4	31 January lecture – Comparison of prison/wage form; power’s hold on time and conditions of possibility for discipline and capital.
5	21 February lecture – Popular illegalisms; worker depredation
6	7 March lecture – Fear of the laboring class; pol. econ. of the working body
7	21 March – New form of confinement-sequestration; normal and abnormal
8	Discipline and Punish (1975) Selections (to be determined) from Part III – Discipline: “Docile Bodies” (pp. 135-169), “The Means of Correct Training” (pp. 170-194), and “Panopticism” (pp. 198-228).
9	Part IV – Prison: “Illegalities and Delinquency” (pp. 257-292).
10	The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-79, posth. pub.) 14 March lecture – Work as economic conduct, from homo oeconomicus to the entrepreneur of the self, the notion of human capital
11	TBD/Flex week (unlikely we will meet)