Bernie said that he was doing a thesis paper on human sexuality from
Foucault's perspective. Is that what you are criticising below, Bryan?
Bernie never mentioned anything that suggests, explicitly nor
implicitly, that he supposes Foucault to be writing about "anything
essentially human."
Foucault's work did find human sexuality to be "invested with many
dispersed relations of knowledge and power," as you write. I'm not
exactly sure what you mean by the "tragectory" (trajectory?) of such a
conception, but I would question your suggestion that Foucault wanted to
show that the *conception* was "fragile." If the conception (concept?)
is a fragile one, then there would be less reason for Foucault to
problematize it. Our conception (i.e., we in the West) of human
sexuality is robust, rather than fragile. That's the reason Foucault's
work is interesting, important, and difficult for many to accept.
And personally, I don't think it helps to tell others what they would be
doing/thinking/asking if they "had read any of Foucault's works." But if
we are playing that way, I'd point out that the question you suggest one
ought to be asking after they read the History of Sexuality is, in my
opinion, the one they would probably be asking *before* they read it,
not after, since it is the question that Foucault is answering within
his book.
Let's encourage each other rather than bring each other down, huh?
There's enough of the latter available already.
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
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> Human sexuality? Did Foucault write about anything essentially human? Human
> sexuality is invested with many dispersed relations of knowledge and power.
> I think, if you have read any of Foucault's works, you would not be asking
> such a question, a better question may be: what are the 'relations of power'
> historically invested in our commonplace notion of what constitutes
> 'sexuality'. Foucault was at pains to show the tragectory and fragility of
> such a conception. In short, he sought to problematize 'human sexuality'.
>
> Bryan
>
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