Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-1979
What are the specific features of the liberal art of government as they were outlined in the Eighteenth century? What crisis of governmentality characterises the present world and what revisions of liberal government has it given rise to? This is the diagnostic task addressed by Foucault's study of the two major twentieth century schools of neo-liberalism: German ordo-liberalism and the neo-liberalism of the Chicago School.
In investigating the major works of Michel Foucault, Barry Smart focuses on the analysis of the relations of power and knowledge and addresses controversial issues concerning the state and resistance to power.
Michel Tournier is possibly France's most widely acclaimed modern novelist, a writer who explores complex philosophical questions in the guise of concrete, imagistic narratives. His texts demand academic scrutiny, but Tournier also actively encourages a different form of reception. His habit of performing abridged versions of his stories before a "live" (frequently young) audience explicitly links his work to the oral tradition of the storyteller.