Michel Foucault and visual culture: Toward a genealogy of modernity

"Michel Foucault and Visual Culture" follows Foucault's thought as it engages with the work of visual artists from the seventeenth century through the contemporary period. It is the first book-length study devoted exclusively to Michel Foucault's reflections on visual art. On the basis of published and unpublished works, I demonstrate how Foucault's thought provides us with the resources for thinking about modern art in terms of its historical uniqueness. I argue that his thought can be understood on the basis of five facets that develop chronologically across his work, each of which helps us to understand the directions taken by visual art throughout modernity.;These analyses provide insight into a heretofore-unknown Foucault and give scholars the requisite visual vocabulary for understanding some of Foucault's more famous essays devoted to visual art. Throughout, I bring his thought into dialogue with the tradition of Continental philosophy more generally and explain why his methods are particularly well suited for studying the cultural products of modernity. That is, I argue that Foucault's unique approach to visual culture enables us to see more.