POLS 3710 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Essentialism
21 Jul 2014
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Document Summary
History and sexuality: the study of sexuality through history is a relatively new field, foucault would argue begins in the second half of the 19th century, why did western society become so obsessed, systematic attempts in studying, since the first works (late 19thcentury), two main approaches were dominant, naturalist. Also thinking about how these impulses are natural, we need to study how society deals with these impulses (also believe in essentialism: dominated the filed until the 1970s, until the arrival of constructivism led by foucault, the field has been revolutionized by constructivism, argument has been that sexuality is the subject of social and cultural moldings, our understanding, feeling and definitions is the result of social and cultural influences, that society molds our sexuality, social forces shape the way we view and engage in sexual activity, foucault: sexuality is a social construction.
