Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography

by David M. Halperin

Book Overview

"My work has had nothing to do with gay liberation," Michel Foucault reportedly told an admirer in 1975. And indeed there is scarcely more than a passing mention of homosexuality in Foucault's scholarly writings. So why has Foucault, who died of AIDS in 1984, become a powerful source of both personal and political inspiration to an entire generation of gay activists? And why have his political philosophy and his personal life recently come under such...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195093712
• ISBN13: 9780195093711
• Release Date: June 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A fabulous reading

This book is probably the best book on how to ground and use Foucault in relation to contemporary social movement politics - an incredibly important rejoinder to the depoliticized, sterile versions of Foucault that do the rounds today in British sociology departments etc.Halperin is one of the best (and certainly most entertaining) readers of the History of Sexuality Vols 2 & 3. Do yourself a favour & get it!

An Outstanding Classic!

This is the best book I have ever read on Foucault, no contest--though one must be clear that Halperin is EXPLICITLY NOT attempting any general and comprehensive explanation of Foucault's life work and thought, which Halperin makes quite clear, though there seems to be some confusion below regarding this point. In fact, the tone of some of the reviews only serve as a demonstration of some of Halperin's points. My main criticism is that I would go even a little further than Halperin with respect to Foucault's actual purpose or mission in _The History of Sexuality_. I would say that, with volumes two and three, Foucault has shifted his purpose from a general "history" (hence the title) of the rise of "sexuality" to a deconstructive and very narrow focus on certain discourses in antiquity that ostensibly SEEM to mirror our own while actually being quite alien to it. It just so happens that these ancient discourses are about men. From this perspective, all the complaining of a small but very loud minority of feminists merely reflects a failure to understand what Foucault was doing. He wasn't trying to give us a general history; rather, he became fascinated by how the ancient world's most familiar discourses (which are about men) could, in fact, be extremely different, by the demonstration and analysis of that difference. As for general history, Foucault repeatedly refers the reader to Dover's _Greek Homosexuality_, which was published between volumes one and two, and which he just as repeatedly tells us he accepts in basic outline. Feeling there was no longer an urgent need for a "history," he gave us his actual second and third volumes. Should he have given us a hint he was changing course? He did!--in the introduction of the second volume. Readers need to learn to be a bit more active--though, clearly, as original, good, and rigorous as the thinking and analysis may be, it does make for a rather uniquely structured set of books.

A Persuasive Defense of a Maligned Thinker

I will pay this book a high compliment for a book of criticism: It made me want to look up and read the end notes. Even further, it reawakened my interest in Foucault (for a time partly under the sleeping spell of Camille Paglia). Halperin does a wonderful job of pointing out the political biases and even the lapses of "critical reasoning" among Foucault's detractors, while making a strong case for his hyperbolic claim that the philosopher was "a f****** saint," presumedly with apparent oxymoron intended. Especially strong is the book's argument of Foucault's importance in AIDS activism and subsequently to so-called queer theory. The writing is lucid, compassionate, sometimes (justifiably) angry, candid, and often witty. Halperin does not fall into the usual postmodernist traps of excessive jargon and redundancy. The last section of the book points out the problems of biography in general, while attending to the specific strengths and weaknesses of three recent attempts to narrate Foucault's life. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in philosophy and/or issues of gender and sexuality.