Dear Stuart,
That comment bothered me as well, and I hadn't had a chance to respond.
Thanks for doing it so eloquently.
Char Ullman
On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Stuart Elden wrote:
> Well, being picky, you cannot 'die of aids'. At most, you can die from
> opportunistic infections as a result of AIDS. But I guess that's beside the
> point. More to the point is the suggestion that his lifestyle contributed to
> his death. Well, it might have done, but it doesn't really matter if he
> slept with 100 men or 1 man, or 1 woman. You only need to be infected with
> HIV from one person. This attitude of the Oxford Dictionary falls into that
> old trap of suggesting gay men in the 80s were swimming around in a trough
> of their own sordid desires, and that they got their just desserts. HIV
> awareness and education has tried (at least relatively successfully) to
> dispel this prejudice/myth and put things on a more balanced level.
>
> James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault, tries to draw parallels
> between the life and the work of Foucault, suggesting all sorts of things
> about F's sex life. Apart from mistakes, much of this is quite dubious. More
> plausible, and certainly more philosophically sound, is David Macey, The
> Lives of Michel Foucault or Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault (which doesn't
> really talk about sex at all, as I recall). A response by a gay writer is
> David Halperin, Saint Foucault.
>
> I guess the inevitable question is, does it matter? Foucault's work on
> sexuality is obviously informed by his personal life, but his reputation as
> a thinker was there before this work began to be published. To be honest,
> whatever its merits, to me it is his least satisfactory work.
>
> By the way, what is meant by the subject/abject distinction? Who is this
> taken from? Sounds a bit of a poor joke, and a poor criticism of Foucault.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Stuart
>
>
>
>
That comment bothered me as well, and I hadn't had a chance to respond.
Thanks for doing it so eloquently.
Char Ullman
On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Stuart Elden wrote:
> Well, being picky, you cannot 'die of aids'. At most, you can die from
> opportunistic infections as a result of AIDS. But I guess that's beside the
> point. More to the point is the suggestion that his lifestyle contributed to
> his death. Well, it might have done, but it doesn't really matter if he
> slept with 100 men or 1 man, or 1 woman. You only need to be infected with
> HIV from one person. This attitude of the Oxford Dictionary falls into that
> old trap of suggesting gay men in the 80s were swimming around in a trough
> of their own sordid desires, and that they got their just desserts. HIV
> awareness and education has tried (at least relatively successfully) to
> dispel this prejudice/myth and put things on a more balanced level.
>
> James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault, tries to draw parallels
> between the life and the work of Foucault, suggesting all sorts of things
> about F's sex life. Apart from mistakes, much of this is quite dubious. More
> plausible, and certainly more philosophically sound, is David Macey, The
> Lives of Michel Foucault or Didier Eribon, Michel Foucault (which doesn't
> really talk about sex at all, as I recall). A response by a gay writer is
> David Halperin, Saint Foucault.
>
> I guess the inevitable question is, does it matter? Foucault's work on
> sexuality is obviously informed by his personal life, but his reputation as
> a thinker was there before this work began to be published. To be honest,
> whatever its merits, to me it is his least satisfactory work.
>
> By the way, what is meant by the subject/abject distinction? Who is this
> taken from? Sounds a bit of a poor joke, and a poor criticism of Foucault.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Stuart
>
>
>
>