Re: [Foucault-L] diderot and the history of sexuality volume 1

this also partly concerns a critique given by Peter Cryle, which I found
wrong precisely because he made what i thought was an incorrect assigning of
Foucault's discussion of Diderot to the chapter of Scientia Sexualis when it
was really not included in Foucault's discussion in that chapter but in
Foucault's more general analysis of confession in the West.

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 4:50 PM, Chetan Vemuri <aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> We're reading parts of History of Sexuality volume 1 again for my
> theory class and I was curious about a reading Foucault
> does in the part "The Deployment of Sexuality".
> In the beginning of this section of the book, he gives a brief
> description of Diderot's fable "Les Bijoux Indiscrets". A student gave a
> brilliant presentation on it, yet I was confused when he used Foucault's
> discussion of Diderot as an example to describe "scientia sexualis" as
> talked about in the book. It's been a while but did Foucault transcribe
> this tale in the context of 19th century medical descriptions of
> "scientia sexualis" or did he transcribe this tale as part of a general
> thesis about confession in the west, 18th century onwards? I ask because
> I remember that tale being brought up only in the beginning of The
> Deployment of Sexuality and not in the discussion "Scientia Sexualis",
> an observation that I think would make more sense considering Diderot
> wrote in the 18th century. Overall, considering how brief a mention it got
> in the book, I would think Foucault was using this tale only as an example
> of an 18th century unscientific version of a practices that would get
> medicalized in the 19th century, considering where he placed the mention of
> the tale and the discussion he made surrounding it in that chapter, which
> didn't seem to focus on scientia sexualis (which was in the previous part)
> but on general confession. --
> Chetan Vemuri
> West Des Moines, IA
> aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx
> (515)-418-2771
> "You say you want a Revolution! Well you know, we all want to change the
> world"
>



--
Chetan Vemuri
West Des Moines, IA
aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx
(515)-418-2771
"You say you want a Revolution! Well you know, we all want to change the
world"

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[Foucault-L] diderot and the history of sexuality volume 1, Chetan Vemuri
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