Saints, Sinners, and Subjects: Foucault's Writings on Religion and Sexuality

Undergraduate / Graduate

What does it mean to be a subject? Throughout his career, Michel Foucault posed this question, examining the psychiatric, penitential, and religious institutions to understand how we moderns arrived at our current understanding of ourselves. But when did we begin to think of the self as something we have, and have to account for? Following the development of Foucault's idea of confession as central to the creation of modern subjectivity, this course examines how Foucault turns from twentieth-century discourses on sexuality to early Christian monastic texts in his genealogy of modern subjectivity. Reading The History of Sexuality Volume 1, The History of Sexuality Volume 4: Confessions of the Flesh, Foucault's lectures on the relationship between religion, subjectivity, and political power alongside key sources and critical scholarship, this course asks: What is Foucault's concept of religion? How does it relate to sexuality? What is the relationship between religion and modernity? How does religion determine our concepts of self, society, and state? This course provides an overview of Foucault's major writings on religion, sexuality and politics. It is open to all undergraduates without pre-requisites. Those taking the course for French credit are required to read and cite Foucault readings in French, and have the option of writing course papers in French.