The Meaning of the Title

Joanna writes:
>....I would like to reflect on the title for just
>a moment.

Yes. It sounds so... definitive.

>The English translation is very misleading.  _The_ history of
>sexuality seems to imply that Foucault will be giving the definitive account
>of sexuality. But I think that misses the ambiguity of the French
>'histoire,' and the lack of an article in the French title.

Histoire can mean "story", too, is that what you're saying? So it could be,
really, just Foucault's story about sexuality.

>It seems that the book serves more as a limit experience that as a list of
>dates and events that track the 'progress' of sexuality.  The importance of
>the book, if I may be so bold, is that a limit is experienced in the reading
>of it - the topic, sexuality, cannot be thought of in the same way as before
>the experience.

The importance of what Foucault was trying to achieve, you mean?

---Randall Albright