Theoretical Framework: “What the Foucault?”

A Summary of This Chapter

The history of sexuality has a complicated history of its own. Many scholars and academics have produced theoretical and historical works that describe or propose models that help make sense of the history of sexuality. Of these scholars, none is more prominent and well-known than Michel Foucault. His The History of Sexuality, originally published in French in four volumes from 1976 to 1984, explores the history of sexuality in the Western world in depth. This work was the first of its kind, and would give rise to a whole new field of study in history.

The History of Sexuality profoundly impacted the field of history and redefined a generation of scholars’ approaches to the study of sexuality. Since The History of Sexuality’s publication, numerous other scholars have expanded on and critiqued Foucault, while others have abandoned Foucault’s foundations altogether, instead  constructing new theories regarding the history of sexuality. A few key works, including Siobhan Somerville’s “Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the Homosexual Body,” Nancy Hartsock’s “Postmodernism and Political Change,” and Catharine MacKinnon’s “Does Sexuality Have a History?” have been included in this toolkit. While these are far from the only or even the most comprehensive additions to the history of sexuality, their works provide modern scholars and students of the field with a number of new ideas to consider.

In the remainder of this chapter, our class has provided a breakdown of the material from each of the works mentioned above, beginning with the first two volumes of Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. Then, we will examine each of the three pieces mentioned above and analyze what their contribution to the history of sexuality is. Finally, we will end this chapter with some comments from our class on Foucault and our class’s general reactions to the theories we read.