The History of Sexuality

Michel Foucault’s multivolume study examines how sexuality became an object of knowledge and governance, and how people shape themselves through sexual practices.

Michel Foucault: French philosopher and historian whose work examined power, knowledge, institutions, and the formation of subjects. His concepts and historical method give the multivolume study its framework.
Repressive Hypothesis: The claim that modern societies chiefly suppressed sexuality through silence and prohibition. Foucault challenges this account by emphasizing the proliferation of sexual discourse.
The Will to Knowledge: The first volume of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, published in 1976. It introduces the modern incitement to speak about sex and the repressive-hypothesis critique.
Pierre Hadot: French historian of philosophy known for studying ancient philosophy as a way of life. His work on spiritual exercises offers a point of comparison for Foucault’s account of ancient self-practices.
Queer Theory: An interdisciplinary field that questions fixed sexual and gender categories and studies their historical production. Foucault’s account of sexuality as historically formed became a major resource for queer scholarship.
Power-knowledge: Foucault’s concept that power and knowledge produce and reinforce one another. The study treats sexual knowledge as bound to practices that classify and govern people.
Confession: A practice of disclosing thoughts or acts to an authority who interprets and judges them. Foucault presents confession as a major technique for producing truths about sex.
The Use of Pleasure: The second volume, published in 1984, studying ancient Greek practices of pleasure and self-mastery. It marks the study’s shift from modern sexuality to ancient ethical practices.
Paul Veyne: French historian of Rome whose work examined ancient social practices and historical categories. His historical approach informed discussion around Foucault’s interpretation of antiquity.
Social Constructionism: The view that categories and meanings are shaped by social and historical processes. The study helped frame sexuality as historically contingent rather than a timeless natural identity.

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