Security, Territory, Population

I just picked up and started reading a new book titled, Michel Foucault: Security, Territory, Population (2007), edited by Michel Senellart. These were lectures given by Michel Foucault at the College de France from 1977-1978, and it was recently translated into English. And it couldn't have come at a better time than right now as I'm writing my conclusion. It's "new" in the sense that it's now accessible to people like me, but "old" if you already spoke French.

I wish I had access to these lectures much earlier because it clarified so many questions I had in relation to my dissertation about major concepts like discipline, normalization, law, state, security, and population, all of which I've had trouble trying to reconcile as my project is in many ways a discussion about the relationship between cultural studies and political science. But reading through the first two lectures, I'm beginning to rethink the scope and substance of my argument, and, it is refining my argument ... at least, I hope so.

I'm doing more reading today and jotting lots of notes here and there. I'm writing my conclusion as I read, editing as I go, and clarifying the individual arguments in each chapter while thinking about the big one. It's like juggling several pins while walking on a tightrope 1,000 ft. in the air across a mile long chasm, and you have to hurry before the fire burns through before you fall to your perilous death.

Sounds like fun.