In last week’s class, Lee proposed a great question that we didn’t talk too much about, so I’ve decided to use it as the launch point for this week’s readings (particularly that of the last two books of Middlesex). The question was something along these lines: Is it important for an author to have an […]
Before I started reading the first two books of Middlesex, I automatically assumed I would be writing a blog post about the nature of being born intersex and societal labels and the prejudices that arise because of those labels, etc. But as I started reading the novel, I was shocked to see how little of […]
Walking trough the animal sex exhibit in MoSex, I noticed one wall close to the entrance dedicated to Charles Darwin. This was, aside from the artist’s statement, the only purely conceptual panel in the exhibit. Darwin, who lived during the Victorian era, is widely credited as the founder of the theory of evolution through natural […]
For as long as the two have existed, the worlds of science and religion have been at war. It is not because of mutual hatred or a desire to dominate human consciousness (although I’m sure this plays some part in certain battles). Rather, it is that the two lines of thought are constantly contradicting each […]
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 […]
Whenever I want to infuriate myself, I like to go read the Yahoo comments on various articles concerning LGBT issues. Inevitably, there will be a comment along the lines of “i’m sick of hering about gay ppl! i don’t want to no about wut ur doing in ur bedroom!” and I find myself shaking my […]
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 […]
