The Foucault F̶i̶a̶s̶c̶o̶ Plague: Frugality, t̶h̶e̶ ̶G̶a̶z̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ of Postmodernism

Abstract

Michel Foucault’s writings on the plague are well-known, no moreso than over the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, in Discipline and Punish, he discusses two forms of the socius, one the pure community and the other the disciplined society: whereas with the former, the “leper was caught up in a process of rejection, of exile-enclosure”, to be marked, separated, and left in an undifferentiated mass, in the latter, plague victims were targeted by “a meticulous tactical partitioning”, individual differentiations and segmentation.