From: "Rebecca Luckhurst" <rebecca-AT-rluckhurst.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: sexual ethics
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 16:53:10 -0000
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Okay, okay! I'll post something!
I wonder if anyone out there can recommend some reading for me. I'm based in the UK reading for a PhD, and I'm looking at Foucault's work on sexual ethics. I shall be using it to look at present day 'self-help' texts (eg Men are From Mars etc) I want to see what kind of ethics these books promote, and what kind of subject they are aiming to produce. I want to try to avoid a simplistic dismissal of them as being either purely subjugating discourses or symptomatic of the 'Californian cult of the self' about which Foucault was so sniffy. I also want to avoid an uncritical celebration of their liberatory potential, as proposed by some other scholars - I shall mention no names!!
It seems to me that these texts must tell us something our culture because they are so popular and sell in such huge numbers - and here in the UK they have, in many instances, entered into common parlance (I expect it's the same elsewhere).
Can anyone suggest either:
a.. any specific sections of Foucault's work I should look at (besides the History of Sex trilogy), or
b.. any particularly interesting/popular self-help books (especially those about relationships), or
c.. the work of any other theorists/scholars which might be relevant?
I would really appreciate any suggerstions, advice or comments.
Thanks for helping.
Rebecca.
-----Original Message-----
From: anand-bhatt <anand.bhatt-AT-vsnl.com>
To: 'foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu' <foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: 18 February 1999 09:50
Subject: RE: ???
>The list is in sleepy time they tell me and it will liven up once somebody posts something. So post something.
>
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