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The Conversation
The Conversation
Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

‘A dark masterpiece’: Foucault’s Discipline and Punish at 50

The Prison Courtyard – Vincent Van Gogh (1890) Wikimedia Commons

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the French publication of Michel Foucault’s dark masterpiece, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

A book of vast historical scope, written with lyrical intensity, it is one of the most influential philosophical works of the 20th century and remains unsettlingly prescient today.

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