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The Birth of an Identity: A Response to Del McWhorter's Bodies and Pleasures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Charles E. Scott
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Abstract

First, I engage Del McWhorter's confessional voice in the context of her thought and emphasize her claim that even “objective knowledge” often has an indirectly confessional aspect. Second, I give an account of the value of historicity and genealogy in McWhorter's understanding of knowing and subjectivity. Third, I address her reconfiguration of the subjectivity of desiring by prioritizing pleasure in the project of “becoming truly gay.” Finally, I assess the meaning of her phrase, “straying afield from myself.“

Type
Symposium
Information
Hypatia , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Summer 2001 , pp. 106 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by Hypatia, Inc.

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References

Foucault, Michel. 1981. Friendship as a lifestyle: An interview with Michel Foucault. Gay Information 7 (Spring): 4–6.Google Scholar
McWhorter, Ladelle. 1999. Bodies and pleasures: Foucault and the politics of sexual normalization. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar