Sexuality: The 1964 Clermont-Ferrand and 1969 Vincennes Lectures

Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, published in 1976, has a significant impact on the humanities and social sciences. This book presents Foucault's unpublished lectures on sexuality, which he taught in the 1960s at the University of Clermont-Ferrand and the experimental university at Vincennes. Foucault explores how sexuality is constituted as a scientific body of knowledge in Western culture and its connection to the analysis of "perversions." He also examines the regulatory nature of sexuality discourse and its implications for economic, social, and political ends. The lectures span various interests, including abnormality, heterotopias, and ideology, providing an unprecedented insight into Foucault's transformative thinking on sexuality.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 440 pages
\n Publication date: 13 July 2021
\n Publisher: Columbia University Press
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Michel Foucault's groundbreaking work, The History of Sexuality, which was first published in 1976, has had a profound impact on the humanities and social sciences. However, Foucault's interest in the history of sexuality began in the 1960s, when he taught two courses on the subject. These unpublished lectures offer invaluable insight into the development of Foucault's thought and have only recently been made available in English.

In the first series of lectures, delivered at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in 1964, Foucault explores the emergence of sexuality as a scientific body of knowledge within Western culture. He questions why sexuality originated from the analysis of "perversions," such as morbidity, homosexuality, and fetishism. The subsequent course, held at the experimental university at Vincennes in 1969, reflects how Foucault's theories were influenced by the events of May 1968. He shifts his focus to the regulatory nature of sexuality discourse and its role in serving economic, social, and political ends. Foucault examines the works of political and literary utopians from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Sade, Fourier, and Marcuse, who sought to integrate "natural" sexualities, including transgressive forms, into social and economic life. Through this analysis, Foucault develops a double critique of the naturalization and liberation of sexuality.

The lectures span a wide range of interests, including abnormality, heterotopias, and ideology, and provide an unprecedented glimpse into the evolution of Foucault's transformative thinking on sexuality. This book offers a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in Foucault's work, gender studies, sexuality studies, and the history of ideas.

\n Weight: 530g\n
Dimension: 141 x 215 x 27 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780231195072\n \n