I have repeatedly encountered mentions and uses of Foucault's ideas when discussing socio-political issues, but have not had a proper introduction to his ideas. Recently, certain concepts from his understanding of power caught my attention as something related to my current area of interest.
I would want to have a basic introduction to his works on power, but also at the same time have a comprehensive view of how other philosophers/ thinkers have responded to his ideas, how have they extended them, or attacked them etc. What would be a good book/ lecture series/ paper/ notes to read for this purpose?
Also, somewhat unrelated to the part above, are there mathematical formalisms related to Foucault's ideas-- I know this may be a very naive question, I am not a student of philosophy-- this question came to my mind from Wikipedia's description of his concept of power, which sounded like a Newtonian understanding of force in part, and as equilibrium modelling in the other part (just a naive thought that came to my mind when reading the article). I would thus also like to know if any mathematical work related to Foucault's ideas exist and where can I read them if they do (not necessarily connecting to Newton like I did, any mathematical formalism related to Newton or not).
