Foucault

From MarxWiki

Michel Foucault, 1926-1984, was a French theorist who repeatedly dealt with issues of truth, the self, knowledge, power, and sexuality, as well as dealing extensively with literature and literary criticism. Born in Poitiers, France, he studied philosophy and psychology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. A supporter of the French Communist Party, he was also associated with the Tel quel collective, along with, among other people, Roland Barthes. Foucault was radically influential in furthering both marxist and cultural studies projects. A gay man who dealt extensively with sexuality and identity, Foucault has been instrumental in the development of gender studies, queer theory, etc. He died of AIDs in Paris in 1984. His works include: Madness and Civilizaton, The Order of Things, The History of Sexuality, and Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews.`

In his writings on the discourses of power and force relations, he departs from structuralism, saying:

`Power is not an instituition, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society` (The History of Sexuality, vol 1., pg 93).

One of Foucault's most influential contributions to queer studies is his assertations that, until the late 19th century, the homosexual was not a person, but an activity:

`This new persecution of the peripheral sexualities entailed an incorporations of perversions and a new specification of individuals. As defined by the ancient civil or canonical codes, sodomy was a category of forbidden acts; their perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. This 19th century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case history, and a childhood, in addition to being a type of life, a life form, and a morphology, with an indiscreet anatomy and a mysterious physiology. Nothing that went into his total composition was unaffected by his sexuality. It was everywhere present in him: at the rood of all his actions because it was their inisidious and indefinitely active principle; written immodestly on his face and body because it was a secret that always gave itself away...the sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species` (43)

Foucault's critics often point to his focus on French and European history, and his selective use of these histories, leading to points of weakness in his theories.