Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 14:20:06 +1000 From: cameron duff <cameron.duff-AT-mailbox.uq.edu.au> Subject: Re: The history of... Foucault-a-go-go! I have been following recent debates concerning plausible foucauldian histories with some interest, and of course a number of suggestions spring to mind. Most immediately, I am fascinated by the historical articulation of beauty and aesthetic judgment. How, in other words, are beauty and dominant conceptions of the beautiful mediated through discourse and practice and implicated in different machinations of power? If power is exercised or effected in and through the body then how does power 'work' through bodies differentiated on the basis of certain perceived standards of beauty? Foucault's insights re the operation of power on 'docile bodies' have certainly advanced theoretical debates across a number of important disciplines, yet such a study seems to remain premised upon a fairly one-dimensional and certainly undifferentiated conception of the body (with the notable exception of a number of recent feminist and queer enterprises). Given that the body is a generally unique constituent of subjectivity in that bodies are individualised through power (and certainly we all, rightly or wrongly consider our corporeal selves as somehow unique), how then does power act upon bodies with respect of the imputation/ascription of beauty? How is beauty defined or characterised in modern discourses and how does this further regulate and limit, and/or enable and produce new opportunities in and around the body and its pleasures? What difference does it make to be characterised as a beautiful body in terms of the effectivity of power and the practice of freedom? To put the question somewhat more facetiously, do blonds have more fun!!!??? Are 'beautiful people' generally more 'free' to manipulate the relations of power in which they find themselves (as one often believed in the school-yard!) or, conversely, are they only further imbricated in such a carceral network? And, finally, might it be possible to write a genealogy of beauty and aesthetics informed by such foucauldian notions of power, subjectivation and freedom? My own informal interest in literature and art history seems to suggest such a study might provide some interesting arguments at the very least. And what of the relationship between beauty and gender...? Maybe y'all have some thoughts!? Cameron Duff University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
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