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Topic: Foucaultian Theory
I'm study Michel Foucault's right now in conjunction with sexuality. I wouldn't mind chatting about with those familiar with his work over the next couple of months.
Posted by StarofVenus 
May 11, 2008
3:08 PM
Teach me a bit about Foucault.

Many claim that he's a postmodernist, although he always denied it. What is your take on that?

And why don't you give a brief summary? Many of us (including me) are at best ignorant about Foucault. Please continue!
Posted by Suddha 
May 11, 2008
3:54 PM
Ok. I'll give you a summary in tomorrow's post it will help me collect my thoughts about him and revise the essay I just got back from my advisor. So, far I read the History of Sexuality: An Introduction and The History of Sexuality: The Use of Pleasure. I also read some texts that use his theories Sexualitys and Society by Weeks, Holland and Waites; Sexual Citizenship: Material Construction of Sexualities by David T.Evans. Michel Foucault was French Philosopher was one of the key people in setting the stage for postmodernism but he didn't want to be called a postmodernist he is listed under new historicism and has some work that falls under poststructuralism. You could almost say he was a deconstructionist also because of how he deconstructs the Victorian era to answer the question "By what spiral did we come to affirm that sex is negated? What led us to show, ostentatiously, that sex is something we hide, to say it is something we silence." (Foucault 9) Foucault was a homosexual. So, especially The History of Sexuality 1,2,3, discusses how homosexuality became deviance.
Posted by StarofVenus 
May 13, 2008
7:24 PM
In History of Sexuality: An Introduction Michel Foucault analyzes the practical context that sexuality is associated historically. Much of the history in this first volume is derived from ancient Greek culture. He discusses how codes of behavior are shaped and defined by ancient philosophers like Xenophone and then refined later in Christian theology. Much of the cultural history is derived from the Greeks who included homosexuality especially between men and adolescent boys as a practice in conjunction with heterosexual marriage. In marriage, the man is the authority of the household and role divisions were made the interior is for the woman and exterior is for the man. He gives a lot attention to the courtship and interpersonal relationships of men with boys over the interpersonal relationships between husband and wife. Most notably, the body isn’t demonized in Greek culture in the way that it becomes associated with evil later in the Christianity of the Victorian era. Second, he presents a different way of thinking about what we call pedophile’s when he writes about the game of chasing a boy by adult males. This society was preoccupied with "boy love" and the meaning of it.
Posted by StarofVenus 
May 15, 2008
6:16 PM
My mistake in the last post it is the History of Sexuality: The Use of Pleasure that analyzes Greek culture.
Posted by StarofVenus 
May 15, 2008
6:18 PM
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality vol 1
Foucault lays the ground work for his repressive hypothesis that is grounded in the Victorian bourgeoisie economic interests. He unsurps the edicate of the times to show power relations of the state using psychiatry and sciences to focus on the deviations of sexuality and the mechanisms that silences it. He doesn’t see sex as a drive, but instead as a complex power grid that defines citizenship. The book is a complex work that I wish he would have provided detailed writing to illustrate his concepts. He is discussing how sexuality became bound in discourse in a binding heady discourse that is loaded in phrases like ““in short, the “polymorphous techniques of power ”” (Foucault 11). There is nothing short about those four words and not nearly enough discussion about it.
Posted by StarofVenus 
May 15, 2008
6:20 PM
A good introductory work to Michel Foucault is Foucault for Beginners by Lydia Alix Fillingham. Michel major works were: Madness and Civilation; The Birth of the Clinic; The Order of Things; Discipline and Punishment; The History of Sexuality 1,2,3 volume 4 is sealed in his estate. He died of Aids before finishing 5 and 6. I am hoping to finish volume 3, The Order of Things and The Birth of the Clinic this study. This study is on Postmodernism and Sexuality.
Posted by StarofVenus 
May 15, 2008
6:28 PM