Abstract
This paper asks two questions: how we should conceive of the subject after Foucault? What implications does rethinking the subject have for historical theory? It attempts to modify Foucault's own persistent hostility to humanist concepts of the subject by distinguishing clearly between autonomy and agency. Autonomy would consist of the ability to hold beliefs and so to perform actions uninfluenced by society or power. Postfoundationalists can reject this concept of autonomy while reclaiming agency, conceived as the ability to modify the beliefs and even practices that one inherits from others. A rejection of autonomy, but not agency, is sufficient to sustain Foucault's main critiques of other concepts of the subject, notably those associated with Sartre, Hegel, and Marcuse. Yet, a clear commitment to agency would significantly alter Foucault's theory of history.