Categories
2007 Abstracts Stage 3

Sexuality and Desire

Hugh Sherlock, 2007, Stage 3

The main focus for this project will be on the work of Michel Foucault (see photo), looking at sexuality in terms of the discourse and power structures which have created and moulded it. Ultimately, I wish to use sexuality as an example of discourse which permeates our deepest pleasures and desires. These desires in turn are what create our identities and govern our relationship with the world. There is therefore a need to differentiate between animal (or biological) desire and social (or discursive) desire, the former being the framework within which the latter exists. Foucault’s work stresses the importance of our awareness of discourse and the violence through which it is enforced and subsequently the need to live with a critical attitude which he calls ‘the art of not being governed.’ Bibliography: Michel Foucault – The History of Sexuality: 1, Didier Eribon – Insult; the Making of the Gay Self, Georges Bataille – Story of the Eye, Deleuze and Guattari – Anti-Oedipus, Destricted (DVD)

Leave a Reply