The Passion of Michel Foucault is a biography of the French philosopher Michel Foucault authored by the American philosopher James Miller. It was first published in the United States by Simon & Schuster in 1993.
Within the book, Miller made the claim that Foucault's experiences in the gay sadomasochism community during the time he taught at Berkeley directly influenced his political and philosophical works.Miller 1993. Miller's ideas have been rebuked by certain Foucault scholars as being either simply misdirected,Scialabba, George. Review: "The Passion of Michel Foucault by James Miller." Boston Globe, 30 January 1993. a sordid reading of his life and works,Williams, James S. The French Review March 1997, Vol. 70, No. 4 pp. 604–605 or as a politically motivated, intentional misreading.
Reception
Writing for The Boston Globe, book critic George Scialabba described The Passion of Michel Foucault as an "intensely interesting" work which provides an "astoundingly vivid though non-prurient description of (mainly homosexual) sadomasochism".
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