The story of Hester Prynne’s persecution in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter encapsulates an issue that bothers me regarding society and religion: specifically, those individuals who oppress others in the name of religion. Not only can these actions be cruel, as is the ostracism in the case of Hester Prynne, but it also goes against […]
This is a bit of a sidetrack from “sexuality” but hey, it’s all related. This is a teaching given by a famous Tibetan-Buddhist lama, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche who also happens to be a filmmaker! The video is long but if you have the time it is very entertaining and full of truth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgGMIn4ktLQ
Social Constructionism of Sexuality According to Jeffrey Weeks I created the diagram above to represent what I thought sociologist Jeffrey Weeks meant when he described the manifestations of social constructionism of sexuality in our society.
I’m writing two blog posts to sort of make up for being late and also I feel this is important. Also it is somewhat related to my other post. Another thing Foucault mentions about bio-power is that it has led to consumerism. In this way we can view sexuality as something that has supreme […]
“A society of blood… where power spoke through blood; the honor of war, the fear of famine, the triumph of death, the sovereign with his sword, executioners and tortures; blood was a reality with a symbolic function. We, on the other hand, are in a society of sex…the mechanisms of power are addressed to the […]
The development of human intellectual capability has produced a wider range of emotions than perhaps we even have names for. Our transcendental complexities and desires have a need to be resolved that far outstrips Nature’s faculties for maintaining equilibrium in the world. In The Social Construction of Sexuality Jeffrey Weeks comments on the intrinsic […]
Although I’m not a scientist (really, really not a scientist), I found it helpful to conceptualize the ideas that Foucault presents on power in “Part IV: The Deployment of Sexuality” by relating them to some basic laws of physics. Foucault’s claim that power is “the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which […]
Reading the essays by Weeks and Norton both came as a bit of a shock to me after finishing Foucault’s treatise on sexuality. Foucault has developed such a comprehensive theory, but it seems to me as if neither Weeks nor Norton really knows where to place it. Foucault establishes a framework for understanding how power […]
I was excited to read Foucault’s assertion that power is an exchange, because that was a point I made in our first class discussion. Of course it’s an exchange – you can’t influence something without something to influence. I think it’s a satisfyingly balanced worldview, and in a way, it reminds me of the way […]
If sex is merely a societal construct, as French philosopher Michel Foucault claims, then it would follow that sex would be viewed differently in separate cultures with their distinct social formations. By that logic, sex would be viewed in one light in France, and in another in Italy. However, Foucault presents his reasoning on the […]
