Progressive Geographies

As a kind of appendix to my comparison of the three different introductions to the History of Sexuality volume II, I thought I would share my working notes on the two different versions of the first chapter of History of Sexuality volume III – the only other part which was published before the books. They can be found as a page on this site.

Developing from his 1981 Collège de France lectures, Foucault gave this material as a lecture in Grenoble on 18 May 1982. It would have been a long lecture if all the published text was delivered. It appeared in 1983 as“Rêver de ses plaisirs. Sur l’«Onirocritique» d’Artémidore” in Recherches sur la philosophie et la langage (No 3, pp. 54-78). If anyone can provide me with a copy of this original it would be much appreciated – it appears to be a house publication from Grenoble, and no UK libraries seem to have a copy. It is reprinted in Dits et écrits as text 332. [Update: I do now have a copy.]

This was an early version of the three sections of Chapter I of Le souci de soi/The Care of the Self. There are changes of various kinds between the 1983 version and the final 1984 one in the book. Most are minor. The most important is right at the end – two short paragraphs in the book replace a longer one in the lecture/article. At the end I discuss the cut passage, what replaced it, and speculate on why it didn’t work in the book, with the 1984 arrangement of material between the volumes.

In 1981 Foucault was profiled in Time magazine – Otto Friedrich with Sandra Burton, “France’s Philosopher of Power”, Time, November 16 1981, pp. 58-9. I’d seen a few references to this piece before, such as in Mark Kelly’s guide to the first volume of the History of Sexuality, so made an effort to find a copy. It took a little while, not least because the pagination is different in the various editions of Time – I’ve seen it referenced to pp. 92-4 and 147-8. Inter-library loan requests led to replies the pages were wrong and therefore it didn’t exist. I did eventually get a copy, only to discover there is a version freely available online here. An interesting piece, much familiar, but a few little things of historical interest.