Foucault And The Kamasutra

Download or read book Foucault and the Kamasutra written by Sanjay K. Gautam and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-06-22 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gautam has here laid out the first serious reading of Michel Foucault in relation to key Sanskrit texts, and--what may be a surprise to many--he has written the first book-length work in English on the nature and origin of the Kamasutra. Gautam also takes up the Natyasastra (the Kamasutra's twin), locating in the first the themes of sexual-erotic pleasure, and locating in the second the classical Indian view of theater, music, dance, and aesthetic pleasure. The book shows how closely intertwined the history of erotics in ancient Indian culture is with the history of theater-aesthetics. Foucault provides a framework for opening up the intellectual horizon of Indian thought; it is his distinction between ars erotics (erotic arts) and scientia sexualis (science of sexuality) that fuels Gautam's exploration of the courtesan as symbol of both erotic and aesthetic pleasure, particularly in her role as a wife to her patron, which entails the morphing of erotics into a form of theater. The scope broadens ambitiously, to an inquiry on the nature of knowledge formation, erotics, theater, and gender relations in premodern Indian society and culture--as they converged on the historical figures of the courtesan and her male counterpart, the dandy. Gautam's twining of aims and subjects--Foucault's western philosophy of pleasure and India's classic text on eros (anchored in art and aesthetics)--transforms both the modern and the ancient texts with new understandings, and as new forms of investigating erotics and subjectivity itself.

Download or read book Foucault and the Kamasutra written by Sanjay K. Gautam and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-06-22 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kamasutra is best known in the West for its scandalous celebration of unbridled sensuality. Yet, there is much, much more to it; embedded in the text is a vision of the city founded on art and aesthetic pleasure. In Foucault and the "Kamasutra", Sanjay K. Gautam lays out the nature and origin of this iconic Indian text and engages in the first serious reading of its relationship with Foucault. Gautam shows how closely intertwined the history of erotics in Indian culture is with the history of theater-aesthetics grounded in the discourse of love, and Foucault provides the framework for opening up an intellectual horizon of Indian thought. To do this, Gautam looks to the history of three inglorious characters in classical India: the courtesan and her two closest male companions—her patron, the dandy consort; and her teacher and advisor, the dandy guru. Foucault’s distinction between erotic arts and the science of sexuality drives Gautam’s exploration of the courtesan as a symbol of both sexual-erotic and aesthetic pleasure. In the end, by entwining together Foucault’s works on the history of sexuality in the West and the classical Indian texts on eros, Gautam transforms our understanding of both, even as he opens up new ways of investigating erotics, aesthetics, gender relations, and subjectivity.

Download or read book Love and Sexuality in Social Theory written by Emiliano Bevilacqua and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-11-27 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love and Sexuality in Social Theory considers the role that love and sexuality play in private and public life. Drawing on both classical and contemporary social theory, this book presents both theoretical and empirical studies of love and sexuality as social factors, from the earliest reconstructions of modern emotional life to the most recent analyses of liquid love. With attention to the consequences that passions and desires have both on morals and behaviour, it departs from the analysis of society in terms of the division of labour and utilitarian mechanisms to consider how a society based on performances values human energy and emotional behaviour in a contradictory way. This book, therefore, presents and discusses classic authors, from Georg Simmel and Pitirim Sorokin to Marianne Weber and Simone De Beauvoir, through the work of Erving Goffman and ending with contemporary authors such as Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, and Eva Illouz. By presenting love as the social foundation of altruism, an essential element in modern conceptions of subjectivity, and a force shaping intimacy and contemporary social life, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, particularly those interested in social theory and the sociology of emotions.

Download or read book Foucault, Biopolitics and Resistance written by Lauri Siisiäinen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political resistance is flourishing. In this context, there is a growing interest to reread Michel Foucault’s work, especially from the late period, from the perspective of resistance, social movements and affirmative biopolitics. Yet what has been missing so far is a book-length, comprehensive study focusing on this topic. This volume undertakes this task, providing an original typology of the resources of resistance discovered in Foucault’s late thinking: resistance as discursive protection of autonomy bodily and affective resistance the strategies, arts and practices of affirmative biopolitics or ‘politics of life’ The book shows how these different types of tools, arts and practices can be used in resistant politics, in struggles against various regimes and institutions of power and government, so that they mutually supplement and reinforce one another. The author embarks on advancing Foucault’s insights on resistance from where he stopped. Furthermore, the volume proposes a novel assessment of the Foucauldian political toolkit in the 21st century context, addressing its pertinence for struggles against neoliberalism and post-Fordist capitalism. Foucault, Biopolitics and Resistance will be an important resource for students and scholars interested in Foucault, resistance and 21st century politics within many fields, including political science, international relations, contemporary and continental philosophy as well as sociology. The work elaborates fresh methodological insights, fruitful for further empirical research on social and political movements.

Download or read book Michel Foucault written by Dan Beer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-02 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is a study of the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault's 1976 work ""La Volonte de Savoir"". Dan Beer aims to uncover a network of ideas and linguistic patterns beneath the surface of the text. Through close textual analysis he addresses the issue of language and its effects on the world we inhabit. The book covers a range of references from the forgotten narratives of 19th-century European psychiatry, examining the scope of confessional literature, to the heated debates that surround Foucault's language and ideas."

Download or read book Against Dharma written by Wendy Doniger and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An esteemed scholar of Hinduism presents a groundbreaking interpretation of ancient Indian texts and their historic influence on subversive resistance Ancient Hindu texts speak of the three aims of human life: dharma,artha, and kama. Translated, these might be called religion, politics, and pleasure, and each is held to be an essential requirement of a full life. Balance among the three is a goal not always met, however, and dharma has historically taken precedence over the other two qualities in Hindu life. Here, historian of religions Wendy Doniger offers a spirited and close reading of ancient Indian writings, unpacking a long but unrecognized history of opposition against dharma. Doniger argues that scientific disciplines (shastras) have offered lively and continuous criticism of dharma, or religion, over many centuries. She chronicles the tradition of veiled subversion, uncovers connections to key moments of resistance and voices of dissent throughout Indian history, and offers insights into the Indian theocracy’s subversion of science by religion today.

Download or read book Connecting Cultures written by Emma Bainbridge and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lively and incisive collection of essays from an international group of scholars explores the interactions between cultures originating in Africa, India, the Caribbean, and Europe. Those interactions have been both destructive and richly productive, and the consequences continue to 'trouble the living stream' today. Several of the essays focus on the continuing reverberations of political and cultural conflicts in post-Apartheid Southern Africa, including the presence in Britain of Zimbabwean asylum seekers. Other authors discuss the ways in which Indian culture has transformed novelistic and cinematic forms. A third group of essays examines the attempts of West Indian women writers to reclaim their territory and describe it in their own terms. The collection as a whole is framed by essays which deal with discourses of 'terror' and 'terrorism' and how we translate and read them in the wake of 9/11. This book was previously published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.