Re: R: Subjectivity and Critique

>Sorry, I meant Histoire de la sexualite vol IV. As far as I know it
>hasn't publish yet except one article "The battle for chastity". Do you
>have some more information?
>
>Arne

As far as I understand it, the story is as follows. Foucault had a six
volume HS planned in 1976 when the introduction came out. These were to be
books on 'themes', *Races and Populations*, *Hermaphrodites*, etc. In his
work, and he planned to publish these very quickly in succession, he came
across a problem, realising that the 19th century wasn't as unique a period
in discourse about sex, subjectivity, etc. as he'd thought. He then went
back to Christian thought, and wrote most of a book called *Les Aveux de la
chair* (The Confession of the Flesh). But this didn't answer all the
questions, so he went further back, and wrote *Le souci de soi* and *L'usage
des plaisirs*. F was revising these last books right up to his last few
days, and they were published just before his death. But he never
revised/rewrote Les Aveux de la chair (listed as HS Vol IV), and because his
request was for no posthumous publications his executors have honoured this.

I was under the impression that the manuscript was on open access at the
Centre-Michel Foucault, but have been told that the Foucault executors are
very strict on who has access to it. My source was denied access.

You mention 'The Battle for Chastity', but there is also an interview called
'Les Aveux de la chair' which is translated in Power/Knowledge, I think.
Peter Brown's The Body and Society is in this area, and Brown and Foucault
traded off each other. It's worth reading.

I guess with the publication of the College de France lectures we may be
able to patch together some of the material that went into this work. I
guess that Vol IV will be published one day, but maybe not for some time.

Any one able to verify, correct, augment this information?

best wishes

Stuart


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