"This is a study of the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault's 1976 work ""La Volonte de Savoir"". Dan Beer aims to uncover a network of ideas and linguistic patterns beneath the surface of the text. Through close textual analysis he addresses the issue of language and its effects on the world we inhabit. The book covers a range of references from the forgotten narratives of 19th-century European psychiatry, examining the scope of confessional literature, to the heated debates that surround Foucault's language and ideas."

Dan Beer

Introduction; 1: Ars Erotica and Scientia Sexualis; 2: Confessions, Silences, Unwritten Histories; 3: Blood and 'Sex' Societies; 4: Power's Forms and Movements; 5: Power and the Individual; Conclusion