Mad for Foucault: Rethinking the Foundations of Queer Theory

Gender and Culture Series

by Lynne Huffer

Michel Foucault was the first to embed the roots of human sexuality in discipline and biopolitics, therefore revolutionizing our conception of sex and its relationship to society, economics, and culture. Yet over the past two decades, scholars have limited themselves to the study of Foucault's History of Sexuality , volume 1 paying lesser attention to his equally explosive History of Madness . In this earlier volume, Foucault recasts Western rationalism as a project that both produces and represses sexual deviants, calling out the complicity of modern science and the exclusionary nature of family morality. By reclaiming these deft moves, Lynne Huffer teases out exciting new strands of Foucauldian thought. She then revisits the theorist's ethical work in light of these discoveries, divining an ethics of eros that sees sexuality as a lived experience we are repeatedly called on to remember. Throughout her study, Huffer weaves her own experiences together with Foucault's, sampling from unpublished interviews and other archived materials in order to intimately rework the problem of sexuality as a product of reason.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Theory, Gender and Sexuality, LGBT

344 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

Reviews

[Emma Sea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huffer writes, “Foucault enjoins us to confront our own limits, and the limits of our truths, through a constant engagement with the borders of a world that we can never fully know” (p. 273). To a large extent, that reflects my experience with this book.

I'm simply not smart enough to understand most of chapter 4 and a lot of chapter 5. I can only sit on the shores of comprehension and throw pretty stones at the words as they sail by. This gives me much sadness.

Huffer's main point is that queer theory draws on The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction without taking into account his earlier Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, and she makes some compelling arguments with her own translations. I'm one of those people who have never read Madness, so before I really judge this book I think that's something I need to do.

[Brig · Rating 5 out of 5]

must read for queer theory & also foucault studjes

[Meridith Kruse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, let's talk about this book. Huge implications here for the direction of Queer Theory - away from the debate about
"acts" versus "identity' into a discussion of ethics. Through a careful, close re-reading of the iconic passage from Foucault's
Sexuality I - Huffer shows how the founders of queer theory in the US got the meaning of this passage wrong... and
through taking up Foucault's largely ignored earlier book Madness and Civilizations sets us on another path. As someone
who has been interested in a queer ethics - this book rocked my world. Huffer outlines a "political ethic of eros" by looking at
a Nietszche-Foucault genealogy, rather than the more common Freud-Foucault pair that queer theory has traditionally loved.
Wow - Wow - Wow. Huffer is clearing the way for some very new, inspiring work to be done in queer theory. Can't wait!