Michel Foucault is a celebrated post-structuralist theorist that has helped shape gender and sexual theory. In A History of Sexuality Volume 1 Foucault dismantles many longstanding sexual traditions and morals by exposing them as societal constructs. According to Foucault, anonymous yet fully invasive power sources have shaped and continue to shape sexual culture and more importantly, individual beliefs about sexuality. However, Foucault's obsession with the influence of power limits his sexual theory in three particular ways. First, he disregards the female sexual experience; second, he undermines individual agency; and third, he undermines the innate desire for love and family. The first half of the paper focuses on his dismissal of the female experience and individual agency. This section of the thesis relies heavily on other feminist scholars, social studies, and the work of historians. The second half of the paper focuses on the human desire for love and family and looks to dystopian literature to help critique Foucault. Dystopian literature has often been paired with modern cultural criticism, including psychoanalysis and post-strucutralism as both act as critiques of the permeating effects of societal control at a community and individual level. However, even dystopian literature leaves some room for individual agency and explores the innate desire for love and family.

Many of the writings of Leo Strauss were dedicated to combating the "crisis of modernity". This crisis was for him the advent and acceptance of nihilism--a state of being wherein any principle one dare dream is allowed and judgment must be withheld. He claimed that the promotion of nihilism at the hands of modern social scientists would lead to the downfall of civilization. Yet, this work seeks to show that all of these claims are made by Strauss in an attempt to hide the "truth" of nihilism from the masses and that Strauss, in fact, is a nihilist thinker. The introductory chapter of this work introduces the problem of nihilism as outlined by Strauss. It also briefly explains the positions of two other nihilist thinkers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, in order to establish the thought which Strauss seems to be arguing against in his works. It then explains the writing style of Strauss as being esoteric. The following chapter will deal with the Strauss' argument for the causes of nihilism. Chapter three will be dedicated to the two solutions that Strauss presents for combating nihilism. The exoteric solution calls for a return to the teachings of the classics, specifically the three types of teaching that he recognizes--Socratic-Platonic, Aristotelian, and Thomistic. The esoteric solution, however, is to use the Platonic conception of the "noble lie" in order to hide the "truth" of nihilism. Chapters four and five will compare Strauss' nihilism to that of Nietzsche and Foucault, respectively. Each chapter will expand on the discussion already presented in the first chapter to further elucidate each thinker's version of nihilism. Finally, I will outline the conception of these three thinkers as a continuum for nihilist thought. I will also discuss how the only definitive difference between the three thinkers is their outlook on the human condition. For example, Strauss and his hidden nihilism is a direct result of his pessimistic view of the masses; whereas Nietzsche's Übermensch nihilism is brought about by his outlook on the prospect for development beyond humanity and Foucault's pure nihilism is drawn out from his notion of power/knowledge. In this way, this work will not only show Strauss as a closet nihilist but also show his integral role in understanding the full range of nihilist thought.

I should like to have completed this process by having this project bound so that it read from right to left instead of the traditional manner in which we have learnt and been taught to read. In partaking of such an activity, it would have been my purpose and intention to share with you my sense of physical discomfort that has situated itself beside me at various stages from the on-set of my research. Because I believe in this process, I have decided to follow a traditional approach, and as you can see it reads as it should from left to right. In the introductory phase of this study, I assert quite unequivocally that this is not a thesis. Instead I promote this as a prolegomena; an interlocutory prolusion. But don't be deceived! This is very much a thesis. It has been researched according to guidelines, formatted according to specifications and ethically undertaken. I want you to believe that it is a thesis. Partially because I have pursued this research in a very serious manner and also because no matter how much we try to avoid becoming enmeshed in a system, ultimately we find that we are. Three years ago I embarked on a quest. At this time, I proposed that I would undertake a study on the Historical Understandings of passion throughout the Western World. This idea came to a sudden and dramatic halt, through the encountering of what I should like to refer to as a series of problems. In order to do justice to my subject, I decided to write about these obstacles, a decision that I hoped would lead me back to my original statement of intent, following their reconciliation. It is Michel Foucault, that I credit with the title for this thesis. After reading his book entitled "This Is Not A Pipe" (1982) I felt a certain sense of inspiration and ethical obligation that I considered worth taking the risk for. Due to no longer writing a thesis on passion, I decided that this could not be called a thesis. It could only be an introduction to my thesis that would speak about why it had become impossible for me to pursue my thesis at this stage. The other reason that this carries the title of this is not a thesis, surrounds my favouring the post-modern over any other position that I have inquired about. This prolusion involves a discussion surrounding many of the problematics associated with my research processes. These include extensively looking at existing methodologies available when undertaking research today. Adjunct to the illumination of these problems, I look at literary disruptions; my penchant for knowledge and my naive aspirations which all contributed to thwarting my journey into completing an adequate study on passion. Included in this prolegomena, are two diagrammatic representations of passion. The first seeks to re-inscribe through re-presenting passion away from its traditional juxtaposition with love or sexual gratification. It re-presents passion as a polyvalent movement that is vastly more complicated than that to which we have come to believe in through out the centuries. Accompanying this depiction, are the traditional notions of passion. This is based on the works of authors such as Aquinas, Daly, Cicero and McLellan. In the conclusion of this prolusion, I suggest that there is a need to re-write a new methodology. One that transcends our current juncture that promotes stances belonging to foundationalism, anti-foundationalism and non-foundationalism. It is my ardent belief, that this is a necessary course of action and will enable the subject of passion to be spoken to as never before.

In this thesis, I will apply Michel Foucault¡¦s knowledge/power theory to discuss gender politics in two Renaissance plays ¡V Ben Jonson¡¦s Epicoene or The Silent Woman and William Shakespeare¡¦s The Taming of the Shrew. The first chapter aims to delineate Foucault¡¦s discursive discipline and its exertion in Renaissance male-female relations. According Foucault, discourses are functional and regulative: they powerfully frame sciences and knowledges that have effects upon our souls and actions. Thus, ¡¥truth¡¦, or the so-called ¡¥self-evident¡¦ and ¡¥commonsensical¡¦ empowers articulators to discipline and control others. Gender discourses in the name of masculine or feminine ¡¥nature¡¦ are similarly little more than instrument of domination. Precisely, the phallo-centrical discourse of Renaissance age empowers contemporary men by subjecting, or explicitly formulating and shaping the ¡¥feminine nature¡¦ of obedient silence. The patriarchal assessment codifies two genders -- one subordinate to the other -- as a key element in its patriarchal view of the social order, and buttressed its gendered division of power. In other words, what lies beneath the discourse is patriarchal consideration for male domination. As long as contemporary women keep silent, the normative power would enable their fathers and husbands to regulate ¡¥womanly conducts¡¦ of all occasions. Then, I would examine how Morose and Epicoene wield disciplinary power by setting up certain ¡¥behavior norms¡¦ in Epicoene. Morose¡¦s ¡¥truth¡¦ of having his family members hold their tongue and make signs has been internalized by Mute: Mute is hence drilled to self-discipline himself to answer the family head¡¦s questions in rigidly prescribed signs or gestures. Mute reifies the formidable outcome of silent conformity to ¡¥reality¡¦: he takes for granted the ¡¥natural¡¦ routine of body language. However, Morose¡¦s wife Epicoene keeps correcting Morose¡¦s mistakes to reinforce her version of ¡¥right¡¦ and ¡¥wrong¡¦. In order to rehabilitate Morose, Epicoene and other characters further label his insanity in public. The conclusion they draw results from the same complicity to put badness to Morose¡¦s ¡¥crazy¡¦ will to discourses and goodness to the ¡¥reasonable¡¦ tolerance of their opinions. In The Taming of the Shrew, Katherina is frightening to the Renaissance males equally because of her undisciplined behavior, or her automatic discourse and self-assertion. The male characters in the play try their best to eschew from Katherina so as to defend themselves against the fear that they will not be capable of keeping ¡¥domestic order¡¦. In one word, talkative women as Katherina are frightening to Renaissance men because of their threat to the original ¡¥orders¡¦. Petruchio hence invalidates Katherina¡¦s judgments ever since they first meet: the purpose of his deliberate pretense of misunderstanding her words is to grant her discourses no influence on him since disciplinary power lies in influencing others¡¦ deeds. He vanquishes resistance from Kate by making her conformable to his ¡¥knowledge¡¦¡Xfemale obedience to male domination. Katherina¡¦s new identity is thus constructed according to Petruchio¡¦s ¡¥rules¡¦: by labeling goodness to female obedience and badness to female transgression, he thus produces another Kate obedient to his intentions. From this aspect, the gender politics between Petruchio and Katherina is essentially a battle for discourse; disciplinary power lies in voicing and reinforcing particular ¡¥truths¡¦. In one word, systematic knowledges are never power-free, but quite the contrary.

ABSTRACT This thesis is focused on Foucauldian analysis of power, madness, and sexuality in Virginia Woolf¡¦s Mrs. Dalloway. Michel Foucault¡¦s assertion of power aims to explicate the positivity of exercises of power and power-knowledge nexus. Foucault¡¦s study of madness and of the history of sexuality manifests the power confrontation between reason and madness, heterosexuality and homosexuality. In Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf also presents these two power confrontations through the stories of the two main characters, Septimus Warren Smith and Clarissa Dalloway. Woolf, in this novel, not only explores the power relationships between human beings and the social systems but also demonstrates the two main characters¡¦ different solutions toward the power conflicts. The Introduction begins with an overview of the theoretical frame of Foucauldian power and an explanation of the connection between Foucauldian approach and Mrs. Dalloway. In Chapter One, I discuss the cause of Septimus¡¦s madness and the power conflict between Septimus and the doctors, i.e. the power confrontation between reason and madness. In Foucauldian term, the power confrontation between reason and madness signifies the power relation between taboo and transgression. Only through incessant movements of transgression, can the limit of taboo be sensed and emancipated. Chapter Two chiefly deals with the same-sex love between Clarissa and Sally. Their choice of marriage displays the power of the norm of heterosexuality. In this chapter, I, further, present Woolf¡¦s feminist point of view toward women¡¦s subordinate position in the marriage. In Chapter Three, I mainly describe the similarities between Septimus and Clarissa and their different resolutions toward power struggles. Both of them have the homosexual inclination; however, in the moral and sexual norm of heterosexuality, they have a sense of alienation from the circumstance they live in. This sense of alienation generates their feelings of being between the two poles of life and death. They both deeply realize the power of the social norms and try to solve their impasse between life and death in the power struggles. Septimus¡¦s suicide symbolizes his resistance against the power of reason and his attempt of ending the power conflicts; on the other hand, Clarissa¡¦s choice of continuing her life conveys a message of hope of survival to counterbalance the power confrontations. In Conclusion, I reiterate the research of Mrs. Dalloway with the synthesis of Woolf¡¦s and Foucault¡¦s point of view toward power, madness, and sexuality. Both Woolf and Foucault lead readers to understand that ¡§norms¡¨ are socially and culturally constructed, and they endeavor to inspire readers to liberate those so-called norms.

Proefschrift--Philosophie--Nimègue, 2005. / Bibliogr. p. 254-262.

The inextricable link between muscularity and masculinity has been increasingly accentuated over the past fourty years, resulting in behaviours that can become unhealthy from a variety of perspectives. Gender is often enacted through manipulating and altering morphologies which can ultimately affect the way one perceives her or his own body. This thesis introduces the term megamusculinity, embodying the links between corporality, muscularity and masculinity. Primarily affecting men, megamusculinity is an exemplar of gender performance where one follows strict dietary and exercise regimens in the pursuit of (gross)muscularity. Much of the academic discussion of gender and body perception focuses primarily upon body size. Shifting the emphasis from body size to regimes of the self, this analysis posits megamusculinity and eating disorders as parallel pursuits, not antithetical realms of extreme morphologies. Foucauldian logic will be blended with Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory to examine megamusculinity as gender performativity with a multitude of social underpinnings. In a world where rules and resources (following Giddens’ articulation of structures) shape everything individuals do, what is occurring in the case of megamusculinity is individuals are actively creating a hypertrophied reality by negotiating their way through the disciplinary constraints of various social structures. This thesis builds upon the psychological construction of muscle dysmorphia as a clinical disorder and introduces megamusculinity, situated not as a “personal trouble of milieu” but a “public issue of social structure” (Mills 1959: 8). In doing so, this thesis will demonstrate that the body perception disturbances of certain men are influenced by experiences with particular social factors/institutions, and positions megamusculinity parallel to eating disorders by focusing upon the regimes of the self involved in altering one’s morphology. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2010-12-22 20:42:33.636

This thesis investigates the relation between exception and governmentality in the critique of sovereignty. It considers exception and governmentality as an expression of the problem of sovereignty and argues that this problem is expressed both within the accounts of sovereignty that exception and governmentality articulate, as well as between them. Taking Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt as the paradigmatic theorists of governmentality and exception, respectively, I engage in close readings of the texts in which these concepts are most thoroughly elaborated: Security, Territory, Population and Political Theology. These readings demonstrate that, despite their apparent differences, exception and governmentality cannot be differentiated from one another. The instability evident in Schmitt and Foucault’s concepts show that the relation between them is best characterized as aporetic. / Graduate / 0615 / 0616 / reganburles@gmail.com

This thesis investigates the relation between exception and governmentality in the critique of sovereignty. It considers exception and governmentality as an expression of the problem of sovereignty and argues that this problem is expressed both within the accounts of sovereignty that exception and governmentality articulate, as well as between them. Taking Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt as the paradigmatic theorists of governmentality and exception, respectively, I engage in close readings of the texts in which these concepts are most thoroughly elaborated: Security, Territory, Population and Political Theology. These readings demonstrate that, despite their apparent differences, exception and governmentality cannot be differentiated from one another. The instability evident in Schmitt and Foucault’s concepts show that the relation between them is best characterized as aporetic. / Graduate / 0615 / 0616 / reganburles@gmail.com

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Magisterarbeit