International Journal of Law in Context

Table of Contents - June 2012 - Volume 8, Special Issue 02 (Family – An International Affair)  

Review essay

Foucault's rhetorical challenge to law

Sarah Burgessa1 c1

a1 Department of Communication Studies, University of San Francisco

Foucault's Law. By Ben Golder and Peter Fitzpatrick, Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2009. 143 pp. ISBN: 978-0-415-42454-7 £22.99 paperback

Foucault's Monsters and the Challenge of Law. By Andrew N. Sharpe, Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2010. 184 pp. ISBN: 978-0-415-43031-9 £26 paperback

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.

Correspondence:

c1 sburgess@usfca.edu