Modernity, from its origins, has accorded a key role to passions. Whether hostile to Reason or, on the contrary, favourable towards it, passions are dangerous and fascinating and bring out the role of the body, desire, language and the imagination in human nature.

This volume aims to address Foucault's philosophical lectures by explaining some of the real and discursive practices addressed in the tome: madness, medicine, human sciences, prison and sexuality.

This volume is undoubtedly one of the first works to address the multitude of revisions, explanations and insights collected together in Michel Foucault's Dits et écrits, in 1994. How should one read this survey, which also provides frequent off-the-cuff commentary on the intellectual activity of Michel Foucault ?

The contributions brought together in this volume constitute one of the first attempts to consider the unusual step of the lessons given by Foucault at the Collège de France being made available to the public.