Foucault-L mail-list

>I agree that Foucault is doing a genealogy of sexuality.  Yet it does 
>not escape my attention that the title of the *series* is a "history".  
>Foucault has told us of archaelogy and of genealogy, but hasn't he only 
>referred to "history" in terms of the those two terms prior to this 
>work?  What is it to do a history of sexuality rather than a Genealogy 
>of Sexuality, a name which he might have entitled it instead if he were 
>so inclined.

I wouldn't attempt any sort of brief answer to this dense, complex, and 
important question, but it seems to me that a crucial place to look for 
the answer is "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History."  I would want to suggest 
that the conception of history that runs through Nietzsche--and that 
Foucault synthesizes in a way in that essay--is a history of effects that 
must be distinguished from antiquarianism, a Hegelian philosophy of 
history, and historicism.  This Nietzschean understanding of history can 
only be carried out by the genealogist and the archeologist; thus, a 
"history" of sexuality requires both genealogical and archeological 
investigations. (To these two Nietzsche might have added etymological and 
philological.)

Sam