Foucault's theories on power, crime and sexuality have enourmously influenced the postmodern debates within postfeminism, cultural studies, sociology, and history.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Tamsin Spargo worked as an actor before taking up her current position as Senior Lecturer in Literary and Historical Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. She writes on religious writing, critical and cultural theory and desire.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
There's been a lot of queer stuff going on in universities recently. Barbie, Shakespeare, even Jane Austen have been given a queer makeover. On the streets Bart Simpson is seen sporting a pink triangle, and the word 'queer', once hurled or whispered as an insult is now proudly claimed as a marker of transgression by people who once called themselves lesbian or gay. What's it all about?
A few years ago, the controller of Channel 4 was described as a 'pornographer in chief' because of the perceived sexual content of his programming. The world-wide web and satellite porn channels were seen as threatening to breach the defences of our island state of innocence. Now, it seems, everyone's at it, or rather talking about it. We've seen documentaries and dramas about prostitution, the vice squad, the sexual habits of evry type of animal under the sun. If a programme has talking heads, chances are they'll be taking about doing it. And if you don't want to do it, you'd better keep quiet (celibacy's not sexy any more) or try tantric sex. It's Madonna's latest thing, apparently, and she should know.
In politics, the old equation of power and sexiness still seems to triumph over principles and aesthetics alike. Although ga politicians are still being 'outed', being gay is not, it seems, the problem it once was for those with ruling ambitions. The press has repeatedly reported a growing climate of 'tolerance', as "The Sun" announced an end to gay-bashing editorials. Although gay and lesbian characters in soap operas are generally all too respectable, the flamboyant camp of Julian Clary and Eddie Izzard's transvestism have contributed to their success. It seems we're altogether a more open, more tolerant, sexier society - and it's getting better all the time. Or is it? Is mainstream culture just flirting with a bit of the other in order to keep us all on a broadly straight line?
While there does seem to be a broader definition of acceptable sexual behaviour, many of the old prejucices remain, and new crises are always in the making. Scenes of mob hysteria about convicted or even suspected paedophiles reveal the fightening side of people power. Freud may have uncovered infantile sexuality, but it's not something late 20th-century society can discuss rationally. There seems to be a crisis about how to cope with 'sex offenders' generally. Are they ill, and if so, what's the cure? Or are they 'evil'? What or whom are they offending? Nature, the Law, Society?
And how, more generally, do we know what makes one erotic activity good and another bad? Is it a matter of divine ordinance, biological nature, or social convention? Can we really be sure that our own desires and pleasures are normal, natural, nice - or that we are? Why does sex matter so much?
As the anthropologist Gayle Rubin argues: 'The realm of sexuality has its own internal politics, inequities, and modes of oppression. As with other aspects of human behaviour, the concrete instutional forms of sexuality at any given time and place are products of human activity. They are imbued with conflicts of interest and political manoeuvring, both deliberate and incidental. In that sense, sex is always political. But there are also historical periods in which sexuality is more sharply contested and overtly politicized. In such periods, the domain of erotic life is, in effect, renegotiated.'
If, as it seems, we are living in such a moment, then one of the ways in which erotic life is currently being renegotiated is through the exploration of how we understand sex in the ways we do. While this exploration may be going on in a myriad of contexts - in the media, in medicine, in parliament - the analysis which is the focus of this essay has been undertaken most energetically by individuals and groups who have experienced the fullest, and at times deadliest, effects of the politics of sex. As women were the first group to explore gender difference, so lesbians, gay men and other groups whose sexualities are defined against the norm of heterosexuality have been foremost in the exploration of the politics of sexuality. In challenging our most basic assumptions about sex, gender and sexuality, including the oppositions between heterosexual and homosexual, biological sex and culturally determined gender, and man and woman, these thinkers are developing new ways of exploring the issue of human identity.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
highly recommended.,
By
This review is from: Foucault and Queer Theory (Postmodern Encounters) (Paperback)
This book provides an excellent overview of what has been grouped into "queer theory". It explains Foucault and the subsequent development of queer theories about various topics very concisely. The author discusses major contemporary thinkers like Judith Butler, and yet the prose and the layout remain straightforward and amazingly simple. No other queer theory book provides so much information in 80 pages.By the way, anyone who likes the style of this book should check out the other brief and entertaining books in the "Postmodern Encounters" series.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Intro to Foucault and Queer Theory,
This review is from: Foucault and Queer Theory (Postmodern Encounters) (Paperback)
Michel Foucault's work on sexuality was highly influential in the formation of Queer Theory. This short book gives a readable introduction to Foucault's complex argument, and to the ways in which this argument influenced Queer Theory. It is very succesful in conveying complex theoretical ideas in a clear way, and will be useful as an introduction to be read before, or after, reading Foucault and the ones influenced by him.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
