The plague and the Panopticon: Camus, with and against the total critiques of modernity

Albert Camus\u27s 1947 novel La Peste and 1948 drama L\u27État de Siège, allegories of totalitarian power using the figure of the plague (Part I), remarkably anticipate Foucault\u27s celebrated genealogical analyses of modern power (Part II). Indeed, reading Foucault after Camus highlights a fact little-remarked in Discipline and Punish: namely, that the famous chapter on the \u27Panopticon\u27 begins by analysing the measures taken in early modern Vincennes following the advent of plague. Part III argues that, although Camus was cited as an inspiration by the nouveaux philosophes, he does not accept the reactionary motif of the total bankruptcy of the modern cultural and political worlds as hopelessly implicated in the totalitarian crimes. Indeed, Part IV highlights how Camus defends modern, descriptive scientific rationality against its totalitarian appropriations, alongside \u27the power of passion, doubt, happiness, and imaginative invention\u27 - positions which Part V suggests as Camus\u27s continuing poignancy and relevance in the period after post-structuralism (Camus, 1952: 301)