One aspect of Foucault’s work that particularly interested me was the tremendous emphasis placed on the power of language. It is important to recognize the influence language holds over both impressions of the present and recollections of the past – as a filter for the human worldview, it regulates taboos, determines social climes, and passes […]
In his History of Sexuality, Foucault provides us with a new accountability for the broadness of our perversions. He grants the individual and the society a space for discussion, unbound by singular form or direction. Noting that the trajectory of sexuality is non-unilateral –the same goes for the discourse surrounding it– Foucault dissects the untenable […]
This evening, Beyonce and her intense thigh action ruined my efforts to finish my submission in time, but it provided me with fantastic context for understanding Foucault’s repressive hypothesis and his epistemology on human sexuality. As I saw America’s Sweetheart gyrate relentlessly amid the backdrop of captivating pyrotechnics, dazzling projection screens and an army of […]
The internet as it now stands, serves as a tool for accelerating the proliferation and diversification of special sexual knowledges, identities, and roles. Fitting perfectly into the framework of power Michel Foucault describes in The History of Sexuality, pornography and social media have transformed the internet into an unprecedentedly effective tool for surveillance, confession, and […]
One of the issues that I believe needs to be addressed in Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality is the divergence in the ways sexuality is viewed, depending on geographical region and religious pockets. As we mentioned in class, many individuals feel that barriers which bar sex from being discussed freely and without any sense […]
I always find it hard to discuss philosophy because of its digressive nature – as soon as you answer one question, you realize that there are a million other questions you need to ask in order to come close to “truth”. And even then that truth is subjective, as it could change depending on the […]
Sam Barnes The opening verse of the Tao Te Ching, rendered here through translation and thousands of years after-the-fact, announces that “the way that can be spoken is not the perennial Way.” Real encounter with life, whether it be in its social, spiritual, or societal aspect, lies just beneath our tongues. And yet the power […]
There is nothing more delightfully frustrating than reading a book that forces all my preconceived notions about a topic into oblivion. I had long assumed that, until recently, society repressed sexuality, giving rise to hatred and embarrassment over the subject. Foucault argues against the theory of repression and claims that discourse on sex was actually […]
I think it is important to point out the seemingly intrinsic differences between Western and Eastern attitudes towards sex. Truly, both are tied to power relations however this manifests differently in both hemispheres. Foucault mentions ars erotica as opposed to scientia sexualis that is centered on confession and discourse of sex. I was thinking of […]
