Is it good?

Is it good?

Do you have a real question about the book?

yeah, is it worth reading?

Yes, all books are if you are a thinking person.

not really.

Then don't read the book.

great thread

ok.

you post too much

It is, but volume I is pretty dense, and is mostly Foucault laying out his "repressive hypothesis" by way of anecdotal evidence from the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. It gets repetitive after a certain point.

Volume II is about sexuality in Ancient Greece, and is both easier and more persuasive. However, classicists have criticized Foucault for misunderstanding key Ancient Greek words and concepts, which is something to keep in mind given that Foucault is not a classics scholar.

Volume III is about Roman sexuality. I actually didn't finish this one, so I won't comment on it.

thanks, user.

Read Madness first it is more fun.

ty user.

Yeah it's awesome. Discipline & Punish is his best.

>volume I is pretty dense, and is mostly Foucault laying out his "repressive hypothesis"
>his
This is slightly misleading as Foucault describes the "repressive hypothesis" but it is not his position. He spends most of the book rejecting it, showing how sexuality is/was not repressed. I'm sure you know this, since you read the book. I just wanted to clarify for OP.

Only if you like AIDS.

Thanks for the clarification, I can see how what I said was confusing. I put "repressive hypothesis" in quotes because, of course, Foucault's thesis is that the Victorians and their ilk were not at all repressing sexuality. Probably should have written "discussion of the 'repressive hypothesis'" or something like that.

Madness and Civilization is an abridged version of History of Madness. Read the latter instead

>Foucunt
"No"

Don't forget that this contains his most concise formulation of biopower as management of capacity to live, as well as theses on its origin (in what I remember to be a purely theoretical register which is a treat to read from Foucault who is such an archivist otherwise)

>Foucault's thesis is that the Victorians and their ilk were not at all repressing sexuality
So he kind of goes against the Freudian view of sexuality? Very interesting please elaborate

>french guy talking about sex
>good

Pick one.

not that user but i'll have a stab at it

the 'repressive hypothesis' held that between the seventeenth century and the victorian era, sexuality was gradually repressed / made invisible. this repression was seen to have been related to the rise of industrial capitalism, its attendant work ethic, and a bourgeois dominated social order

but as Foucault notes, there was actually an surfeit of discourse concerning sex during the seventeenth century and victorian era. chiefly this discourse was scientific. for foucault sex and sexuality -- far from being repressed -- was actually being produced by new (mainly scientific) discourses. Foucault of course sought to confront the 'truths' within, and consequently the power behind, the discourse:

'Why has sexuality been so widely discussed, and what has been said about it? What were the effects of power generated by what was said?'