The History of Sexuality is the title of a three-volume series of
bookA book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s by French philosopher and historian
Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley.Foucault is best known for his critical studies of...
written between 1976 and 1984. Originally published in French, the volumes are individually titled
The Will to Knowledge (
Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonte de savoir),
The Use of Pleasure (
Histoire de la sexualite, II: l'usage des plaisirs), and
The Care of the Self (
Histoire de la sexualité, III: le souci de soi).
Three volumes of
The History of SexualityThe History of Sexuality is the title of a three-volume series of books by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault written between 1976 and 1984...
were published before Foucault's death in 1984.
The History of Sexuality is the title of a three-volume series of
bookA book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s by French philosopher and historian
Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University of California, Berkeley.Foucault is best known for his critical studies of...
written between 1976 and 1984. Originally published in French, the volumes are individually titled
The Will to Knowledge (
Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonte de savoir),
The Use of Pleasure (
Histoire de la sexualite, II: l'usage des plaisirs), and
The Care of the Self (
Histoire de la sexualité, III: le souci de soi).
Volume One
Three volumes of
The History of SexualityThe History of Sexuality is the title of a three-volume series of books by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault written between 1976 and 1984...
were published before Foucault's death in 1984. The first and most referenced volume,
The Will to Knowledge (previously known as
An Introduction in English—
Histoire de la sexualité, 1: la volonté de savoir in French) was published in France in 1976, and translated in 1977, focusing primarily on the last two centuries, and the functioning of sexuality as an analytics of power related to the emergence of a science of sexuality (
scientia sexualis) and the emergence of
biopowerBiopower was a term originally coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations." Foucault...
in the West. In this volume he questions the "
repressive hypothesisThe repressive hypothesis asserts that since the 19th Century Western societies have sought to repress human sexuality and sexual urges.This hypothesis is not attributable to any one particular person or group. Rather, it is a mode of thought that was identified and challenged by the French...
", the widespread belief that we have, particularly since the nineteenth century, "repressed" our natural sexual drives. He shows that what we think of as "repression" of sexuality actually constituted sexuality as a core feature of our identities, and produced a proliferation of discourse on the subject.
In Volume One, Foucault points to a watershed in human history, between the
Counter-ReformationThe Counter-Reformation denotes the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648....
and the
Industrial RevolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the United Kingdom. The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe, North...
, where the Catholic church and
stateA sovereign state is a political association with effective internal and external sovereignty over a geographic area and population which is not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state...
sought to control people's sexuality for the stability of the church and the benefit of the economy, respectively. He points to a realignment of the Vatican's views on sexuality during this period as an attempt to make people feel the need to attend confession more often, thus increasing the power of the church. Simultaneously, he highlights a shift in focus by the
French GovernmentThe History of France from 1789 to 1914 extends from the French Revolution to World War I and includes:*French Revolution *French First Republic *First French Empire under Napoleon...
from viewing citizens as "subjects" to "a
populationIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings. Individuals within a population share a factor may be reduced by statistical means, but such a generalization may be too vague to imply anything...
", a scientific concept that could be manipulated according to the needs of the economy. This was a trend that occurred across
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
as the Industrial Revolution spread.
Volumes Two, Three and Four
The second two volumes,
The Use of Pleasure (
Histoire de la sexualite, II: l'usage des plaisirs) and
The Care of the Self (
Histoire de la sexualité, III: le souci de soi) dealt with the role of sex in
GreekAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
and
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
antiquity. The latter volume deals considerably with the ancient technological development of the
hypomnemaHypomnema , also spelled hupomnema, is a Greek word with several translations into English: a reminder, a note, a public record, a commentary, a draft, a copy, and other variations on those terms....
which was used to establish a permanent relationship to oneself. Both were published in 1984, the year of Foucault's death, the second volume being translated in 1985, and the third in 1986.
In his lecture series from 1979 to 1980 Foucault extended his analysis of government to its "wider sense of techniques and procedures designed to direct the behaviour of men", which involved a new consideration of the "examination of
conscienceConscience is an ability or a faculty that distinguishes whether one's actions are right or wrong. It leads to feelings of remorse when a human does things that go against his/her moral values, and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when actions conform to moral values. It is also often viewed...
" and confession in early
Christian literatureChristian literature is writing that deals with Christian themes and incorporates the Christian world view. This constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing.-Scripture:...
. These themes of early
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
literature seemed to dominate Foucault's work, alongside his study of Greek and Roman literature, until the end of his life. However, Foucault's death from AIDS left the work incomplete, and the planned fourth volume of his
History of Sexuality on Christianity was never published. The fourth volume was to be entitled
Confessions of the Flesh (
Les aveux de la chair). The volume was almost complete before Foucault's death and a copy of it is privately held in the Foucault archive. It cannot be published under the restrictions of Foucault's estate.
See also
- History of sex
- Biopolitics
The term "biopolitics" or "biopolitical" can refer to several different yet compatible concepts.-Definitions:# In the work of Michel Foucault, the style of government that regulates populations through biopower .# In the works of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, anti-capitalist insurrection using...
- State racism
State racism is a concept used by French philosopher Michel Foucault to designate the reappropriation of the historical and political discourse of "race struggle", in the late seventeenth century....
- Pierre Hadot
Pierre Hadot is a French philosopher specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism. He was director at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales from 1964 to 1986 and was named professor at the Collège de France in 1982, where he held the Chair of History in Greek and Roman...
- Grotesque body
The grotesque body is a concept, or literary trope, put forward by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin in his study of Francois Rabelais' work. Through the use of the grotesque body in his novels, Rabelais related political conflicts to human physiology...
External links