What is the (literary) history of sexuality?
Readings:
Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité 1: La volonté de savoir. Gallimard-Tel. ISBN: 978-2070740703.
Hervé Guibert, A l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie, Gallimard Folio. ISBN: 978-2070385034.
Hervé Guibert, Le protocole compassionnel, Gallimard-Folio, 1992. ISBN: 978-2070387311.
Guillaume Dustan, Oeuvres 1. P.O.L. ISBN: 978-2818014660.
Beatriz Preciado. Testo Junkie. J’ai Lu. ISBN: 978-2290036020.
Mathieu Lindon. Le procès de Jean-Marie Le Pen. Gallimard-Folio. ISBN: 978-2070408931.
Mathieu Riboulet, Les oeuvres de miséricorde, Verdier. ISBN: 9782864326878.
Rachid O. Analphabètes. Gallimard. ISBN: 978-2070139101.
Abdellah Taia. Un pays pour mourir. Seuil. ISBN: 978-2021219753.
Fatou Dioume. Celles qui attendent. J’ai Lu. ISBN: 978-2290031988.
Virginie Despentes. Vernon Subutex 1. Grasset. ISBN: 978-2246713517.
Course Description:
If “What is the history of sexuality?” will be one of the central questions we will be asking throughout the semester, two others will be “How does literature figure in the history of sexuality?” and “What other kinds of history are part of the history of sexuality, or what other histories is the history of sexuality part of?” Our primary texts will be French and francophone literary texts from about 1990 to the present. We will read excerpts from Foucault’s seminars and his History of Sexuality to get us going, and we will read enough different texts from the field of queer studies or sexuality studies to give us a sense of how that field has developed in the North American academy since the 1990s.