Abstract

Despite some notable tensions and a few disappointments, the conference on the works of Michel Foucault, held during the last three days of October 1981 at the University of Southern California, was a lively and entertaining affair. And unlike most such events, the USC conference was a media event, attracting not only tiresome academics (of which there were plenty), but representatives of such estimable publications as Time magazine and some punkish looking undergraduates hoping to videotape the proceedings. The media folks had some problems, though, as the USC people insisted that ideas were commodities to be bought and sold and guarded their wares like merchants on the lookout for shoplifters.