DESCLOITRES Paul

Am Studies 330

Queer Theories/Lives

Sept. 9^th 2003

· Introduction –forewords

Even before starting to present a biography of Michel Foucault and some of his main ideas, I would like to tell you how important it was for me to study this particular author. Being in a country, the culture of which I do not know in details, studying a subject I had never studied before, this presentation gave me an opportunity to find someone I could cling to and identify to. Obviously, I was able to find in his works as well as in the various texts I have read, many allusions to part of my cultures, that of France and that of the gay people, not community, in France, so that eventually I could feel home.

Experiences may be the same but somehow sexuality being cultural –as we will see thanks to Foucault’s analysis-, I think the cultural representations as well as the social constructions differ from one country to another even if these countries are parts of a global order.

· I Biography and bibliography

This being said, here is a brief biography of our man. Michel Foucault was born on October 15^th 1926 in Poitiers. After graduating, he had an exceptional training: he entered the prestigious Lycee Henry IV, where the Elite of the nation is trained and in 1946, he was admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure as the fourth highest-ranked student. He then taught philosophy in different universities across Europe such as Warsaw, Paris VIII, and Tunis and in 1970, he was elected member of the College de France, which is the most prestigious state-run institution of higher education in France and where he held a chair in History of Systems of Thought. Michel Foucault is as we have seen a scholar and a learned. In 1960, he met Daniel Defert, his philosophy student. Defert’s political activism had a great influence on Foucault. In 1981 Foucault said about his relationship with Defert: “I have lived for 18 years in a state of passion toward someone. At some moments this passion has taken the form of love. But in truth, it is a matter of a state of passion between the two of us”. It is great to see how such a scholar was still able of love and somehow how this influenced him.

As far as his writings are concerned, Foucault considered himself as an archaeologist searching for what creates culture, to open up afterward the possibilities of changing them. He first wrote about the present forms of knowledge in the 60s in such works as “Les Mots et les choses’ (“The Order of things”) and “L’ Archeologie des saviors” {“The Archeaology of Knowledges”). But what interest us more is his works from the 70s as for example “Surveiller et punir” (“Discipline and Punish”) and “L’Histoire de la sexualite I” (History of sexuality vol. 1). Michel Foucault was after this and until his death in 1984 from an AIDS-related illness one of the most influential figure of the French intellectual scene. He devoted the last decade of his life to the “History of sexuality” that he unfortunately never finished.

· II Ideas

In a second part, let us tackle some of Foucault’s main ideas. I will not be able to

summarize comprehensively the different features of his work, however I wanted to show which are his greatest ideas, ideas which are linked to queer theories, for sure. It is also very difficult to provide quotations from this author as far as he tended not to state any argument.

He basically says that from the seventeenth century onward, there has been an ever-growing concern about sex, and that people even if it was not in a direct way, tended to talk more and more about it. Society has then begun to build and to generate a representation of sexuality, formulating norms and rules. In this respect, sexuality is not natural but social, historical and cultural. Foucault also insists on the fact that institutions such as the Church, the Law and Medicine helped to create this representation of sexuality.

Not only does Foucault break down the notion of sexuality as being not only biological, he also breaks down the notion of identity. He believes that what we think of ourselves, and what our relatives, our friends and our acquaintances think of us is socially constructed. To him, people do not have any true and fixed identity within themselves, it is actually the way they appear, the way they talk about themselves or the way we perceive them that help us construct an image, an identity for them. Someone’s identity then can change, it is only temporary.

But let us come back to the earlier idea of sexuality as a social feature. To him, homosexuality is also constructed socially It began to be constructed by doctors at the end of the nineteenth century. But what I find really interesting is how he shows, and that is clearly emphasized in Foucault and Queer Theories page 22, how Gays and Lesbians have been led to take pride in themselves, fully consider themselves as such and, using discourse, are able to regain some power : “Those who are produced deviant subjects ([that is to say] homosexuals)[and I am quoting] may find a common cause, a common dissenting voice that turns confession to profession.”

· Limits and Conclusion

How great I may find Foucault’s analysis, there is still an important limit to it. It

is that Foucault’s production almost exclusively relates to and focus on the gay male, thus excluding great parts of the queer population. Foucault needs therefore to be completed by other writers more concerned by other people.

However, for Queer Theories, Foucault is not only a point of departure, he remains one of those who helped our vision of things change tremendously.

Bibliography to the presentation

“Foucault.info-> biography”. 8 September 2003 . <http://foucault.info/foucault/biography.html>

Gauntlett, David. “Michel Foucault”. Theory.org.uk. 8 September 2003. <http://theory.org.uk/ctr-fou1.htm>

Gros, Frederic. “Foucault (M)”. Encylopaedia Universalis. 8 September 2003 <http://www.universalis.fr/___4.frart___/private/article2.asp?nref=C020110>

Mautner, Thomas. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, London: Penguin Books, 1999.

Spargo, Tamsin. Foucault and Queer Theory. New York: Totem Books, 1999

~Creative Response

In this creative response rather than analyzing one more time Foucault’s work, I wanted to convey the feelings I had while reading the first part of the “History of Sexuality”. Here are different examples of images referring to sex we can find in our society, overwhelming me and making me feel dizzy. They also stand for all his examples and that made me feel dizzy as well. I didn’t meant to create a reactionary response saying this is bad or this is good or worse that I didn’t like sex, I only wanted to shout: “too much”.