Foucault in the epidemic: (re)reading gay subjectivity in a post-AIDS landscape
Date
2022-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH SUMMARY: This research project aims to present an extensive reading of Michel Foucault in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Western world. It will evaluate the potential of the works of Foucault in reconciling a critical narrative of HIV/AIDS between the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing on the experiences of gay men. The immediate applicability of Foucault should be apparent; not only because his bibliography dealt comprehensively with the relationship between knowledge, discourse, and power, but for his consistent reliance on presenting these ideas through analyses of healthcare and the management of disease. Understanding the emergence of AIDS seems inseparable from its relationship with the status of gay men as the object of social, legal, and religious scrutiny. While much of Foucault’s bibliography may help to critically deconstruct this phenomenon, two concepts are significant. This thesis will focus on Foucault’s The History of Sexuality for its introduction of the concept of biopower and its surrounding ideas of sexuality, confession, and healthcare in modernity, applying it to the initial years of the AIDS crisis. This foundation will then be extended into addressing 21st-century concerns, using Foucault’s lecture series at the Collège de France and his discussions on governmentality in understanding the effects of an increasing focus on individual responsibility in healthcare on both HIV+ and HIV- gay men. Finally, the project will consider four important objections to Foucault’s applicability in constructing a critical narrative of HIV/AIDS: (1) that his personal life constitutes him as something of an AIDS-denialist, and that his academic project can be constructed as anti-science, (2) that he undermines the importance of identifying “at-risk” groups, as well as the necessity of testing and treatment, (3) that his later works were uncritically sympathetic to the transformative potential of a neoliberal healthcare ethic, and finally, (4) discussing his characterization of his bibliography as being too Eurocentric to sustain a world where the global narrative of HIV/AIDS has shifted from homosexuals in the West to heterosexuals in Africa. This structure will serve the conclusion that Foucault offers a robust reading of a history of the medicalisation of the gay subject, culminating in the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 20th century, and ultimately serving to transform gay subjectivities into predictable, rational neoliberal health actors coerced by the normative associations surrounding personal responsibility.
"Geen opsomming beskikbaar"
"Geen opsomming beskikbaar"
Description
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.
Keywords
Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984, Queer theory, Neoliberalism, HIV/AIDS, AIDS (Disease) -- Epidemiology, UCTD