Problematization in foucault’s genealogy and deleuze’s symptomatology: Or, how to study sexuality without invoking oppositions

Angelaki 23 (2):187-204 (2018)
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Abstract

The work of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze frequently gave rise to a practice of philosophy as a form of critical problematization. Critical problematization both resonates between their thought and is also generative for contemporary philosophy in their wake. To examine critical problematization in each, a shared theme of inquiry provides a useful focal point. Foucault and Deleuze each deployed critical problematization in the context of studies of sexuality, a site of excited contestation that remains as crucial for us today as it was for them four decades ago. Foucault’s well-known History of Sexuality, Volume 1 and Deleuze’s little-discussed text Coldness and Cruelty thus provide us with exemplary instances of the critical problematization of sexuality. An examination of these two texts, and their broader resonance, illuminates the potential of Foucauldian genealogy and Deleuzian symptomatology as methods for critical problematization today. It is argued that they provide compelling alternatives to modern critical moods that would want to interpret sexuality through a series of oppositions.

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Colin Koopman
University of Oregon

References found in this work

Essays on Deleuze.Daniel W. Smith - 2012 - Edinburgh University Press.
The logic of sense.G. Deleuze - 2000 - Filosoficky Casopis 48 (5):799-808.
Nietzsche and philosophy.Gilles Deleuze & Hugh Tomlinson - 1991 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 1:53-55.

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