WEBVTT

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Prof: Now,
I don't think it's ever

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happened to me before--
although it might have but I

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can't recall its having
happened--

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that I found myself lecturing
on a person who had lectured

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yesterday here at Yale,
but that's what happened in

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this case.

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You read--let's just call
it--the facetious article on the

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lecture in The Daily News
this morning.

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Some of you may actually have
been in attendance.

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I unfortunately could not be,
but as it happened I ran into

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her later in the evening and
talked to some of her colleagues

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about what she'd said,
so I do have a certain sense of

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what went on.

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In any case,
as to what went on,

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I'm going to be talking today
about the slipperiest

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intellectual phenomenon in her
essay having to do with what she

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calls "psychic
excess,"

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the charge or excess from the
unconscious which in some

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measure unsettles even that
which can be performed.

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We perform identity,
we perform our subjectivity,

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we perform gender in all the
ways that we'll be discussing in

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this lecture,
but beyond what we can

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perform there is
"sexuality,"

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which I'm going to be turning
to in a minute.

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This has something to do with
the authentic realm of the

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unconscious from which it
emerges.

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What Butler did in her lecture
yesterday was to return to the

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psychoanalytic aspect of the
essay that you read for today,

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emphasizing particularly the
work of Lacan's disciple,

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Jean Laplanche,
and developing the ways in

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which sexuality is something
that belongs in a dimension that

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exceeds and is less accessible
than those more coded concepts

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that we think of as gender or as
identity in general.

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So conveniently enough,
for those of you who did attend

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her lecture yesterday,
in many ways she really did

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return to the issues that
concerned her at the period of

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her career when she wrote
Gender Trouble and when

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she wrote the essay that you've
read for today.

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All right.

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Now I do want to begin with
what ought to be an innocent

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question.

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Surely we're entitled to an
answer to this question,

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and the question is:
what is sexuality?

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Now of course you may be given
pause--

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especially if you've got an ear
fine-tuned to jargon--

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you may be given pause by the
very word

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"sexuality,"
which is obviously relatively

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recent in the language.

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People didn't used to talk
about sexuality.

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They talked about sex,
which seems somehow more

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straightforward,
but "sexuality"

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is a term which is not only
pervasive in cultural thought

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but also has a certain privilege
among other ways of describing

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that aspect of our lives.

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In other words,
there is something authentic,

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as I've already begun to
suggest, about our sexuality,

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something more authentic about
that than the sorts of aspects

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of ourselves that we can and do
perform.

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That's Butler's argument,
and it's an interesting

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starting point,
but it's not yet,

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or perhaps not at all,
an answer to the question,

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"What is sexuality?"

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Now for Foucault sexuality is
arguably something like desired

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and experienced bodily pleasure,
but the problem in Foucault is

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that this pleasure is always
orchestrated by a set of factors

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that surround it,
a very complicated set of

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factors which is articulated
perhaps best on page 1634 in his

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text,
the lower right-hand column.

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He's talking about the
difference between and the

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interaction between what he
calls the "deployment of

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alliance"
and the "deployment

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of"--
our word--"sexuality."

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I want to read this passage and
then comment on it briefly:

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"In a word [and it's of
course not in a word;

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it's in several words],
the deployment of alliance is

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attuned to a homeostasis of the
social body..."

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The deployment of alliance is
the way in which,

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in a given culture,
the nuclear reproductive unit

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is defined,
typically as the

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"family,"
but the family in itself

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changes in its nature and its
structure.

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The way in which the family is
viewed,

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the sorts of activities that
are supposed to take place and

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not take place in the family--
because Foucault lays a certain

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amount of stress on incest and
the atmospheric threat of

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incest--
the sorts of things that go on

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in the family and are surrounded
by certain kinds of discourse

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conveying knowledge--
and we'll come back to the

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latter part of that sentence--
all have to do with the

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deployment of alliance.

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On the other hand,
the deployment of sexuality we

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understand as the way in which
whatever this thing is that

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we're trying to define is talked
about--

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and therefore not by any state
apparatus or actual legal system

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necessarily--
but nevertheless simply by the

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prevalence and force of various
sorts of knowledge police.

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Okay.

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To continue the passage:
In a word, the deployment of

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alliance is attuned to a
homeostasis [or a

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regularization;
that's what he means by

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"homeostasis"]
of the social body,

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which it has the function of
maintaining;

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whence its privileged link with
the law [that is to say,

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the law tells us all sorts of
things about the family--

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including whether or not there
can be gay marriage,

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just incidentally:
I'll come back to that in a

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minute];
whence too the fact that the

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important phase for it is
"reproduction."

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The deployment of sexuality has
its reason for being,

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not in reproducing itself,
but in proliferating,

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innovating, annexing,
creating, and penetrating

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bodies in an increasingly
detailed way,

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and in controlling populations
in an increasingly comprehensive

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way.

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What he's saying is,
among other things,

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that a deployment of sexuality,
which isn't necessarily a bad

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thing--
these deployments aren't meant

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somehow or another to be
terroristic regimes--

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a deployment of sexuality,
which for example favored forms

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of sexuality such as birth
control or homosexuality,

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would certainly be a means of
controlling reproduction.

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Just in that degree,
the deployment of sexuality

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could be seen as subtly or not
so subtly at odds with the

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deployment of alliance,
alliance which is all for the

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purpose of reproduction or at
least takes as its primary sign,

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as Foucault suggests,
the importance,

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the centrality,
to a given culture--

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or sociobiological system,
if you wil--

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of reproduction.

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These are the ways in which the
deployment of alliance and the

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deployment of sexuality
converge, don't converge,

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and conflict with each other.

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But in all of these ways,
we keep seeing this concept of

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sexuality;
but, as I say,

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it continues to be somewhat
elusive what precisely it is.

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Just to bracket that for the
moment, let me make another

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comment or two on the concepts
in the passage that I have just

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read.

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Let's say once and for all at
the outset that the central idea

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in Foucault's text,
the idea which he continues to

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develop throughout the three
volumes on the history of

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sexuality--
the central idea is this idea

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of "power"
as something other than that

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which is enforced through legal,
policing or state apparatus

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means.

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This is power which is enforced
as a circulation or distribution

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of knowledge,
which is discursive in nature,

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and which enforces its norms
for all of us,

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for better or for
worse--because discourse can

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release and can constitute sites
of resistance as well as

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oppress--
which, for better or worse,

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circulates among us ideas that
are in a certain sense governing

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ideas about whatever it is
that's in question,

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in this case,
obviously, sexuality.

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Foucault calls this,
sometimes hyphenating it,

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"power-knowledge."

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This is absolutely the central
idea in late Foucault.

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I introduced it,
you remember,

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last time in talking about
Said.

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I come back to it now as that
which really governs--

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and guides you through--the
whole text of Foucault:

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the distinction between power
as it's traditionally understood

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as authoritative--
as sort of top- down,

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coming from above,
imposed on us by law,

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by the police,
by whatever establishment of

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that kind there might be--
the distinction between power

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of that kind and power which is
simply the way in which

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knowledge--
and knowledge is not,

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by the way, necessarily a good
word,

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it's not necessarily knowledge
of the truth--

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the way in which knowledge
circulates and imposes its

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effects on us,
our behavior,

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the way we are or the way at
least that we think we are--

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the way in which we
"perform,"

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in Butler's term.

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All of that in Foucault is to
be understood as an effect of

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power-knowledge.

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Now notice, however,
in terms of our question--What

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is sexuality?--that Foucault is
being quite coy.

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He's talking about sexuality
but he's not talking about it in

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itself,
whatever it "in

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itself" might be.

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He's talking about the
deployment of it,

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that is to say the way in which
power-knowledge constructs it,

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makes it visible,
makes it available to us,

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and makes it a channel through
which desire can get itself

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expressed,
but a channel which is still

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not necessarily in and of itself
that natural thing that we look

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for and long for and continue to
seek: the nature of sexuality.

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So when the emphasis in
Foucault's discussion is really

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on deployment,
that is, the way in which

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alliance--
the family, whatever the

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nuclear social structure might
be--

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or sexuality--whatever it is
that gets itself expressed as

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desire--
the way in which these matters,

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these aspects of our lives,
can be deployed,

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we still aren't necessarily
talking about the thing in

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itself.

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Foucault isn't an
anthropologist.

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He's not talking about the
family in itself either.

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He's talking about the way in
which a basic concept of

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alliance out of which
reproduction arises and gets

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itself channeled can be
deployed,

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and understood as manipulated
by, the circulation of

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power-knowledge.

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The issue of gay marriage is
very interestingly,

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by the way, between the
concepts of the deployment of

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alliance and the deployment of
sexuality,

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because there's a certain sense
in which the deployment of

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sexuality is at odds with the
deployment of alliance.

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If sexuality is something that
is really just looking around

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for ways to get itself
expressed,

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taking advantage of deployment
where that's a good thing and

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trying to resist deployment
where that seems more like

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policing--
if it's just looking around for

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a way to get expressed,
it's not particularly

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interested in alliance.

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It's not interested in the way
in which relationships involving

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sexuality could settle into any
kind of a coded pattern or

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system of regularity,
so that there is this tension

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which,
of course, gets itself

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expressed whenever,
within the gay community,

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people strongly support gay
marriage and see that as the

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politicized center of
contemporary gay life;

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or people also in
the gay community,

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many of them theoretically
advanced,

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think of it as a non-issue or a
side issue which loses track

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precisely of what Foucault calls
the deployment of sexuality,

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simply trying to extend the
domain,

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arguably a tyrannical domain,
of the deployment of alliance--

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in other words,
to redefine the basic concept

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of alliance in such a way that
doesn't really touch very

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closely on the deployment of
sexuality.

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So it's an interesting and
rather mixed set of issues that

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the whole question,
the whole sort of profoundly

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politicized question,
of gay marriage gives rise to.

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So that's what sexuality is
>

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in Foucault.

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In Butler it's just clearer
that to ask the question--What

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is sexuality?-- is--well,
it's just been a false start.

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We thought it was an innocent
question, but you get into

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Butler and you see very clearly
that you simply can't be

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a certain sexuality.

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You can perform an identity,
as we'll see,

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by repeating,
by imitating,

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and by parodying in drag.

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You can perform an identity,
but you can't wholly

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perform sexuality precisely
because of this element of

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psychic excess to which her
thinking continues very candidly

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and openly and honestly to
return.

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Butler's work,
in other words,

15:47.850 --> 15:51.490
is not just about "the
construction of identity."

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It's not just about the domain
of performance,

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as one might say.

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It acknowledges that there is
something very difficult to

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grasp and articulate beyond
performance.

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Its main business is to explain
the nature and purview and

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purposes of performance,
but it's nevertheless always

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clear in Butler,
as she returns to the question

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of the unconscious in
particular,

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that there is something in
excess of,

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or not fully to be encompassed
by, ideas of performance.

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So we've made a false start.

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We've asked a question we can't
answer, but at the same time we

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have learned certain things.

16:41.320 --> 16:44.560
We've learned certainly that
sexuality,

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whatever it is,
is more flexible and also in

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some sense more authentic--
that is to say,

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closest to the actual nature of
the drives.

16:54.428 --> 16:58.468
Yesterday Butler made a
distinction between instinct and

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drive which I won't go into
because it had to do with her

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reflections on what is cultural
and what is biological or not

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cultural in the life of the
unconscious.

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For our purposes,
whatever role sexuality may

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play in the unconscious,
and however authentic--that is

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to say,
however not culturally

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determined that role may turn
out to be--

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it's more flexible.

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That's the important thing,
more than any kind of social

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coding: the sort of coding,
for example,

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that Foucault would indicate in
speaking of alliance or deployed

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sexuality and the sort of coding
that Butler refers to repeatedly

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as "gendering."

17:48.400 --> 17:53.850
Still, for both of them--and
this is the other thing we've

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learned--
even sexuality through

17:57.232 --> 18:03.812
deployment, or through the way
in which it can get expressed in

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relation to gender and
performance, is discursive.

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It's a matter of discourse.

18:11.750 --> 18:15.130
It arises out of linguistic
formations,

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formations that Foucault
understands as circulated

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knowledge and that Butler
understands,

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again, as performance.

18:24.150 --> 18:30.210
Foucault sees sexuality as the
effect of power-knowledge,

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power as knowledge.

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Butler sees it as the
effect--insofar as it's visible,

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insofar as it is acted
out--sees it as the effect of

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performance.

18:45.390 --> 18:51.020
So now to take the way in which
Butler makes this relationship

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between what one might suppose
to be authentic,

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actual, all about one's self,
and that which is performed,

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that which is one's constructs
toward being a self,

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let's take one of the most
provocative sentences in her

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essay,
which is on page 1711 about a

19:13.369 --> 19:17.379
third of the way down:
"Since I was sixteen,

19:17.380 --> 19:25.730
being a lesbian is what I've
been."

19:25.730 --> 19:29.350
Now what she's doing--remember
at the very beginning of the

19:29.347 --> 19:32.777
essay she says that her whole
purpose is to reflect,

19:32.779 --> 19:37.619
is somehow or another to
register a politicized

19:37.615 --> 19:43.605
intervention in gender studies
in terms of a philosophical

19:43.606 --> 19:46.396
reflection--
on ontology,

19:46.401 --> 19:48.441
on "being."

19:48.440 --> 19:52.400
What is it in other words,
she says, to be

19:52.400 --> 19:53.390
something?

19:53.390 --> 19:56.000
Now what she's doing in this
sentence,

19:56.000 --> 19:59.180
which is an awkward-seeming
sentence,

19:59.180 --> 20:04.030
"[B]eing a lesbian is what
I've been,"

20:04.030 --> 20:10.120
is pointing out to us that to
be something is very different

20:10.121 --> 20:14.561
from to be "being"
something.

20:14.559 --> 20:18.619
For example, I can say I'm busy.

20:18.619 --> 20:20.519
(By the way, I am.)

20:20.519 --> 20:26.479
I can say I'm busy and I expect
you to take it that there's a

20:26.476 --> 20:31.236
certain integrity,
there's a certain authenticity

20:31.240 --> 20:34.220
in the fact that I'm busy.

20:34.220 --> 20:37.770
Yes, I'm busy,
but suppose you say,

20:37.773 --> 20:42.483
suspecting that I'm not really
busy, "Oh,

20:42.479 --> 20:45.929
he's being busy."

20:45.930 --> 20:50.850
In other words,
he's performing busy-ness.

20:50.848 --> 20:56.148
He's going around being busy,
sort of imposing on me the idea

20:56.150 --> 21:00.210
that this lazy person is
actually accomplishing

21:00.212 --> 21:01.452
something.

21:01.450 --> 21:04.480
So, the performance of being
busy.

21:04.480 --> 21:08.890
But here's the interesting
point that Butler is making:

21:08.885 --> 21:13.375
the ontological realm is
supposed to be about the simple

21:13.375 --> 21:18.705
being or existence of things,
and it's always in philosophy

21:18.705 --> 21:22.785
contrasted with agency,
with the doing of things,

21:22.787 --> 21:27.017
with getting something done,
with the performance of things.

21:27.019 --> 21:30.369
But what Butler is saying--and
that's why she says that she

21:30.369 --> 21:33.199
takes an interest in the
ontological aspect of the

21:33.201 --> 21:36.271
question--
what she's saying is that there

21:36.265 --> 21:39.675
is an element of the
performative which actually

21:39.683 --> 21:41.943
creeps into the ontological.

21:41.940 --> 21:46.290
Even being, she says,
is something that in some

21:46.287 --> 21:52.047
measure--perhaps not altogether
but in some measure--something

21:52.051 --> 21:53.471
we perform.

21:53.470 --> 21:58.710
Hence the doubling up of the
word "being"

21:58.709 --> 22:02.079
in the sentence,
"Since I was sixteen,

22:02.078 --> 22:05.278
being a lesbian is what I've
been."

22:05.278 --> 22:08.558
In one sense,
yeah, I am--that's what I am,

22:08.564 --> 22:12.244
but in another sense I've been
performing it.

22:12.240 --> 22:14.660
I've been being one.

22:14.660 --> 22:15.850
>

22:15.848 --> 22:18.758
I've been outing myself,
if you will.

22:18.759 --> 22:23.389
I have been taking up a role
that can be understood,

22:23.394 --> 22:27.484
as all roles can,
intelligibly in terms of its

22:27.484 --> 22:28.944
performance.

22:28.940 --> 22:32.350
So that's why she puts the
sentence that way,

22:32.348 --> 22:36.148
and if you made a big mark in
the margin and said,

22:36.146 --> 22:37.926
"Aha, got her!

22:37.930 --> 22:40.980
This is where she says she
really is something.

22:40.980 --> 22:44.640
No more of this stuff about
just constructivism,

22:44.644 --> 22:47.614
making oneself up as one goes
along.

22:47.608 --> 22:49.268
This is where she says she
really is

22:49.268 --> 22:50.728
something,"
then you're wrong.

22:50.730 --> 22:51.720
>

22:51.720 --> 22:54.130
She's escaped your criticism
because she says,

22:54.134 --> 22:55.374
"Oh, no,
no, no.

22:55.368 --> 23:00.538
I have been being a lesbian:
I've been being one,

23:00.538 --> 23:03.278
which is a different thing,
although not altogether a

23:03.278 --> 23:06.028
different thing,
from being one."

23:06.028 --> 23:08.078
She is deliberately,
in other words,

23:08.078 --> 23:13.598
on the fence between the sense
of the ontological as authentic

23:13.596 --> 23:18.926
and her own innovative sense of
the ontological as belonging

23:18.932 --> 23:22.192
within the realm of performance.

23:22.190 --> 23:24.860
She doesn't want to get off the
fence.

23:24.858 --> 23:30.558
She really doesn't want to come
down squarely on either side

23:30.563 --> 23:33.803
because for her--
and this is what I like best

23:33.798 --> 23:35.778
about her work,
even though it's perhaps the

23:35.782 --> 23:37.162
most frustrating thing about
it--

23:37.160 --> 23:40.940
because for her,
what she is talking about is

23:40.944 --> 23:43.014
ultimately mysterious.

23:43.009 --> 23:45.679
She has a great deal to say
about it,

23:45.680 --> 23:48.950
but she's not pretending that
in what she has to say about it

23:48.950 --> 23:51.240
she's exhausted the
"subject."

23:51.240 --> 23:56.080
That's why it seems to me to be
admirable that she stays on the

23:56.075 --> 23:59.735
fence about this,
and not simply an occasion for

23:59.740 --> 24:01.300
our frustration.

24:01.299 --> 24:07.689


24:07.690 --> 24:17.680
So with all of this said--and
mystification aside,

24:17.680 --> 24:19.850
if you will,
as well--with all of this said,

24:19.848 --> 24:24.658
it seems plain that Foucault
and Butler do have a common

24:24.656 --> 24:26.926
political agenda.

24:26.930 --> 24:31.860
Foucault is a gay writer who
was, in the later stages of

24:31.861 --> 24:36.791
writing The History of
Sexuality, dying of

24:36.792 --> 24:40.102
AIDS;
Butler is a lesbian writer.

24:40.098 --> 24:44.108
Both of them are very much
concerned for the political

24:44.105 --> 24:47.955
implications of their
marginalized gender roles,

24:47.960 --> 24:51.820
while at the same time--of
course, being theoretically very

24:51.821 --> 24:53.621
sophisticated about them.

24:53.618 --> 24:58.788
Their common political agenda
is to destabilize the

24:58.788 --> 25:03.748
hetero-normative by denying the
authenticity,

25:03.750 --> 25:07.360
or in Butler's parlance
"originality,"

25:07.355 --> 25:09.575
of privileged gender roles.

25:09.578 --> 25:13.758
In other words,
who says heterosexuality came

25:13.759 --> 25:14.519
first?

25:14.519 --> 25:18.799
Who says the nuclear family is
natural?

25:18.798 --> 25:24.538
Who says sexuality can only get
itself expressed in certain ways

25:24.544 --> 25:28.014
that power-knowledge deploys for
it?

25:28.009 --> 25:32.709
These are the sorts of
questions, the politicized

25:32.709 --> 25:37.799
questions, which these
discourses raise in common.

25:37.798 --> 25:43.148
So it seems to me that they
have a very broad agenda in

25:43.153 --> 25:49.103
common, and it also seems to me
that they are very closely in

25:49.102 --> 25:50.492
agreement.

25:50.490 --> 25:54.380
I say that just in order to
pause briefly on the moment in

25:54.378 --> 25:56.288
which they seem not to be.

25:56.288 --> 26:01.538
You've probably noticed that
one text is referring to another

26:01.538 --> 26:05.998
at one point in your reading,
and so let's go there:

26:06.001 --> 26:09.241
page 1712, the right-hand
margin.

26:09.240 --> 26:13.580
The context for this,
of course, is Butler talking

26:13.584 --> 26:18.374
about Jesse Helms having
deplored male homosexuality in

26:18.372 --> 26:23.162
attacking the photography of
Robert Mapplethorpe,

26:23.160 --> 26:26.240
and by implication,
Butler argues,

26:26.242 --> 26:30.542
simply erasing female
homosexuality because his

26:30.541 --> 26:34.001
diatribe pays no attention to
it.

26:34.000 --> 26:38.440
Butler then complains that
there's a certain injustice in

26:38.441 --> 26:41.441
that because,
in a way, it's even worse,

26:41.438 --> 26:43.888
she says,
sort of to be declared

26:43.891 --> 26:47.571
nonexistent than it is to be
declared deviant.

26:47.568 --> 26:51.068
At least the male homosexual
gets to be declared deviant:

26:51.073 --> 26:52.453
we're simply erased.

26:52.450 --> 26:57.000
That's the position she's
taking here, and then at that

26:57.002 --> 27:01.352
point, what she says is:
To be prohibited explicitly is

27:01.347 --> 27:05.067
to occupy a discursive site from
which something like a

27:05.070 --> 27:07.830
reverse-discourse can be
articulated;

27:07.828 --> 27:12.838
to be implicitly proscribed is
not even to qualify as an object

27:12.836 --> 27:14.206
of prohibition.

27:14.210 --> 27:18.540
Here's where she gives us a
footnote on Foucault,

27:18.544 --> 27:22.974
footnote fifteen (you know we
love footnotes):

27:22.970 --> 27:28.080
It is this particular ruse of
erasure which Foucault for the

27:28.079 --> 27:33.449
most part fails to take account
of in his analysis of power.

27:33.450 --> 27:36.240
Butler's argument is that in
Foucauldian terms,

27:36.243 --> 27:39.223
there's got to be
discourse for there to be

27:39.220 --> 27:40.010
identity.

27:40.009 --> 27:43.729
Helms's refusal of the category
of "lesbian"

27:43.733 --> 27:46.313
simply by omission--
and of course,

27:46.314 --> 27:49.304
we know, by the way,
that this is a refusal

27:49.300 --> 27:53.000
only by omission--
Helms's refusal of this

27:52.998 --> 27:55.518
category is,
in other words,

27:55.521 --> 27:57.611
an erasure of discourse.

27:57.609 --> 27:59.659
No discourse, no identity.

27:59.660 --> 28:03.850
That is, in other words,
what Butler is claiming

28:03.846 --> 28:06.516
Foucault's position entails.

28:06.519 --> 28:08.609
Discourse creates
power-knowledge.

28:08.608 --> 28:11.088
Power-knowledge creates
identity.

28:11.088 --> 28:13.368
Therefore, where there's no
discourse,

28:13.368 --> 28:17.448
there can be no identity,
and since Helms has erased the

28:17.445 --> 28:20.555
lesbian by refusing discourse
about it,

28:20.558 --> 28:24.078
it must follow that there is no
such thing as a lesbian.

28:24.078 --> 28:28.838
That's the implication of this
footnote.

28:28.838 --> 28:33.768
He almost always presumes [and
we must do honor to that word

28:33.765 --> 28:37.855
"almost"]
that power takes place through

28:37.855 --> 28:43.615
discourse as its instrument,
and that oppression is linked

28:43.619 --> 28:47.669
with subjection and
subjectivization,

28:47.670 --> 28:52.720
that is, that it is installed
as the formative principle of

28:52.719 --> 28:55.069
the identity of subjects.

28:55.068 --> 29:00.768
Now in defense of Foucault,
let's go to page 1632,

29:00.768 --> 29:07.628
the upper right-hand column,
a passage that's fascinating on

29:07.628 --> 29:10.418
a number of grounds.

29:10.420 --> 29:13.520
It's rather long but I think I
will read it,

29:13.517 --> 29:15.387
upper right-hand column.

29:15.390 --> 29:18.320
Foucault says:
Consider for example the

29:18.317 --> 29:20.647
history of what was once
"the"

29:20.653 --> 29:22.333
great sin against nature.

29:22.328 --> 29:26.408
The extreme discretion of the
texts dealing with sodomy--

29:26.410 --> 29:29.880
that utterly confused
category--and the nearly

29:29.875 --> 29:34.645
universal reticence in talking
about it made possible a twofold

29:34.651 --> 29:35.731
operation.

29:35.730 --> 29:36.500
Okay.

29:36.500 --> 29:41.310
Here's Foucault saying that
this is a category.

29:41.308 --> 29:45.748
The homosexual identity,
as understood in terms of

29:45.746 --> 29:47.916
sodomy, is a category.

29:47.920 --> 29:52.440
He's going to go on to say that
it's punishable in the extreme

29:52.440 --> 29:57.110
by law, but in the meantime he's
saying there's no discourse.

29:57.108 --> 30:00.388
There's a kind of almost
universal silence on the

30:00.394 --> 30:01.084
subject.

30:01.078 --> 30:04.698
You don't get silence in Dante,
as I'm sure you know,

30:04.704 --> 30:08.684
but in most cases in this
period nobody talks about it.

30:08.680 --> 30:11.540
It's punishable,
severely punishable by law,

30:11.539 --> 30:13.669
and yet nobody talks about it.

30:13.670 --> 30:18.050
This would seem to
violate Foucault's own premise

30:18.046 --> 30:22.106
that discourse constitutes
identity but also plainly

30:22.105 --> 30:26.795
does contradict Butler's
claim that Foucault supposes

30:26.799 --> 30:30.699
that discourse always
constitutes identity.

30:30.700 --> 30:35.210
Let's continue:
… [T]he nearly universal

30:35.209 --> 30:38.159
reticence in talking about it
made possible a twofold

30:38.160 --> 30:41.620
operation: on the one hand,
there was an extreme severity

30:41.617 --> 30:44.957
(punishment by fire was meted
out well into the eighteenth

30:44.957 --> 30:46.967
century,
without there being any

30:46.969 --> 30:49.979
substantial protest expressed
before the middle of the

30:49.984 --> 30:53.174
century) [Discourse is here
failing also in that it's not

30:53.173 --> 30:55.453
constituting a site of
resistance,

30:55.450 --> 30:59.170
and nobody's complaining about
these severe punishments just as

30:59.170 --> 31:02.470
on the other hand nobody's
talking very much about them:

31:02.470 --> 31:04.410
there is,
in other words,

31:04.405 --> 31:08.635
an erasure of discourse],
and [he continues]

31:08.638 --> 31:13.508
on the other hand,
a tolerance that must have been

31:13.506 --> 31:18.286
widespread (which one can deduce
indirectly from the infrequency

31:18.294 --> 31:21.904
of judicial sentences,
and which one glimpses more

31:21.902 --> 31:25.232
directly through certain
statements concerning societies

31:25.228 --> 31:28.488
of men that were thought to
exist in the army or in the

31:28.492 --> 31:30.762
courts)--
In other words,

31:30.762 --> 31:36.552
he's saying there was an
identity and that identity was

31:36.554 --> 31:42.064
not--at least not very much--
constituted by discourse.

31:42.058 --> 31:45.988
As you read down the column,
he's going to go on to say that

31:45.993 --> 31:49.663
in a way, the plight of the
homosexual got worse when it

31:49.662 --> 31:51.732
started being talked about.

31:51.730 --> 31:55.660
Yes, penalties for being
homosexual were less severe,

31:55.660 --> 31:59.630
but the surveillance of
homosexuality--

31:59.630 --> 32:04.440
the way in which it could be
sort of dictated to by therapy

32:04.442 --> 32:08.762
and by the clergy and by
everyone else who might have

32:08.757 --> 32:13.147
something to say about it--
became far more pervasive and

32:13.145 --> 32:17.025
determinate than it was when
there was no discourse about it.

32:17.028 --> 32:21.918
In a certain way,
Foucault is going so far as to

32:21.919 --> 32:26.289
say silence was,
while perilous to the few,

32:26.288 --> 32:32.468
a good thing for the many;
whereas discourse which perhaps

32:32.471 --> 32:38.601
relieves the few of extreme fear
nevertheless sort of imposes a

32:38.595 --> 32:44.615
kind of hegemonic authority on
all that remain and constitutes

32:44.619 --> 32:49.949
them as something that
power-knowledge believes them to

32:49.952 --> 32:53.292
be,
rather than something that in

32:53.289 --> 32:57.639
any sense according to their
sexuality they spontaneously

32:57.635 --> 32:58.175
are.

32:58.180 --> 33:01.320
It seems to me that this
pointed disagreement with

33:01.319 --> 33:03.379
Foucault,
raised by Butler,

33:03.377 --> 33:07.697
is answered in advance by
Foucault and that even there,

33:07.700 --> 33:11.730
when you think about it,
they're really in agreement

33:11.734 --> 33:13.164
with each other.

33:13.160 --> 33:17.820
Foucault's position is more
flexible than she takes it to

33:17.819 --> 33:20.519
be,
but that just means that it's

33:20.516 --> 33:24.876
similar to her own and,
as I say, that fact together

33:24.875 --> 33:30.245
with the broad shared political
agenda that they have seems to

33:30.248 --> 33:35.358
me to suggest that they're
writing very much in concert and

33:35.356 --> 33:38.876
in keeping with each other's
views.

33:38.880 --> 33:42.350
Now in method they are somewhat
different.

33:42.348 --> 33:47.838
Foucault is a more historical
writer, although historians

33:47.840 --> 33:52.450
often criticize him for not
being historical.

33:52.450 --> 33:56.570
The reason historians don't
think he's historical is that he

33:56.570 --> 34:00.690
never really explains how you
get from one moment in history

34:00.692 --> 34:01.812
to the next.

34:01.808 --> 34:05.738
He talks about moments in
history, but he talks about them

34:05.743 --> 34:08.163
in terms of bodies of
knowledge--

34:08.159 --> 34:11.269
"epistemic moments,"
as he sometimes says.

34:11.268 --> 34:14.828
Then these moments somehow
mysteriously become other

34:14.833 --> 34:16.933
moments and are transformed.

34:16.929 --> 34:21.079
The kind of causality that
might explain such a thing from

34:21.081 --> 34:25.451
an historian's point of view
tends in Foucault's arguments to

34:25.454 --> 34:26.624
be left out.

34:26.619 --> 34:29.209
He nevertheless is concerned,
however,

34:29.210 --> 34:33.490
with the way in which views of
things change over time,

34:33.489 --> 34:37.239
and it's the change in those
views that his argument in

34:37.235 --> 34:41.255
The History of Sexuality
tends to concentrate on;

34:41.260 --> 34:44.580
so that he can say that
starting in the nineteenth

34:44.581 --> 34:47.361
century and continuing to the
present,

34:47.360 --> 34:53.590
there are essentially four
cathected beings around which

34:53.585 --> 34:57.315
power-knowledge deploys itself.

34:57.320 --> 35:01.410
He describes them as the
hysterical woman,

35:01.409 --> 35:05.409
the masturbating child,
the Malthusian couple--

35:05.409 --> 35:08.589
meaning the couple that is
enjoined not to reproduce too

35:08.585 --> 35:11.295
much because the economy won't
stand for it,

35:11.300 --> 35:15.590
which is a way of,
you see, of deploying alliance

35:15.592 --> 35:20.782
in such a way as to manipulate
and control reproduction.

35:20.780 --> 35:23.060
That's a moment,
by the way, in which the

35:23.063 --> 35:26.493
deployment of alliance and the
deployment of sexuality may be

35:26.489 --> 35:30.389
in league with each other,
because obviously birth control

35:30.387 --> 35:34.227
and homosexual practices can
also control reproduction.

35:34.230 --> 35:38.900
As you see, it's not always a
question of conflict between

35:38.898 --> 35:41.518
these two forms of deployment.

35:41.518 --> 35:44.138
So in any case,
there's the Malthusian couple

35:44.137 --> 35:47.407
and then the perverse adult,
meaning the queer person in

35:47.409 --> 35:48.479
whatever form.

35:48.480 --> 35:55.050
He says about this--on page
1634 in the left-hand column--

35:55.050 --> 36:01.160
that you get these four types,
and he says that therapy,

36:01.159 --> 36:07.299
the clergy, family,
parental advice,

36:07.300 --> 36:11.220
and the various ways in which
knowledge of this kind

36:11.217 --> 36:16.057
circulates have to do primarily
with the preoccupation with,

36:16.059 --> 36:19.119
tension about,
anxiety about these four types.

36:19.119 --> 36:23.589
The hysterical woman is
determined to be hysterical once

36:23.592 --> 36:28.802
it begins to be thought that her
whole being is her sexuality.

36:28.800 --> 36:35.970
The masturbating child violates
the idea that children are born

36:35.972 --> 36:40.932
innocent and must be--
because it suggests something

36:40.934 --> 36:45.614
terribly wrong about the cult of
the innocent child that begins

36:45.608 --> 36:49.798
in the nineteenth century--
it's something that is subject

36:49.800 --> 36:52.120
to extreme and severe
surveillance.

36:52.119 --> 36:54.259
"Who knows what will come
of this?"

36:54.260 --> 36:58.270
Scientific thinking about
masturbation had to do with the

36:58.271 --> 37:03.801
notion that it led to impotence,
that by the time you got around

37:03.802 --> 37:08.142
to being in a relationship,
there wouldn't be anything

37:08.144 --> 37:09.024
there anymore.

37:09.018 --> 37:13.068
Just terrible thoughts--also it
stunted your growth and you died

37:13.070 --> 37:15.960
sooner--just terrible,
terrible thoughts about

37:15.961 --> 37:17.571
masturbation existed.

37:17.570 --> 37:21.700
All of this dominated the
scientific literature until well

37:21.699 --> 37:23.799
into the twentieth century.

37:23.800 --> 37:27.300
Then the Malthusian couple,
which was primarily a

37:27.300 --> 37:31.380
phenomenon of what's called
"political economy"

37:31.382 --> 37:35.542
in the earlier nineteenth
century but has prevailed,

37:35.539 --> 37:39.249
by the way, in what we suppose
to be,

37:39.250 --> 37:42.820
and indeed what is,
our progressive technology of

37:42.824 --> 37:46.554
the promotion of birth control
around the world.

37:46.550 --> 37:49.310
"We must control
population"

37:49.307 --> 37:53.257
is still the Malthusian
principle on which we base the

37:53.259 --> 37:57.359
idea that people really need to
be enlightened about the

37:57.360 --> 38:02.430
possibility of not just having
an infinite number of children.

38:02.429 --> 38:07.689
Again you see that Foucault is
right still to suppose that the

38:07.686 --> 38:12.166
notion of the Malthusian couple
prevails among us.

38:12.170 --> 38:16.650
Then finally the perverse
adult, who is first discoursed

38:16.648 --> 38:21.018
about in the nineteenth century,
as the earlier passage that I

38:21.018 --> 38:22.948
read suggested,
and is still,

38:22.947 --> 38:25.817
of course, widely discoursed
about.

38:25.820 --> 38:30.690
Of course it now has a voice
and discourses in its own right:

38:30.690 --> 38:36.470
a literature,
a journalism and all the rest

38:36.465 --> 38:39.945
of it,
and is in other words very much

38:39.945 --> 38:43.925
in the mainstream of discourse
and still has controversy

38:43.932 --> 38:47.522
swirling around it,
precisely because of the

38:47.523 --> 38:50.813
discursive formations that
attach to it.

38:50.809 --> 38:55.009
All of this Foucault takes to
be in the nature of historical

38:55.012 --> 38:56.012
observation.

38:56.010 --> 38:59.950
For Butler on the other hand,
as you can tell from her

38:59.949 --> 39:01.449
style--
I am sure that,

39:01.451 --> 39:03.391
as in the case of reading
Bhabha,

39:03.389 --> 39:07.139
you recognize a lot of Derrida
in Butler's style--

39:07.139 --> 39:11.329
in Butler it's a question of
taking these same issues and

39:11.327 --> 39:15.287
orienting them more in the
direction of philosophy.

39:15.289 --> 39:18.999
I've already suggested the way
in which she understands this

39:19.001 --> 39:22.211
particular essay as a
contribution to that branch of

39:22.210 --> 39:24.600
philosophy called
"ontology,"

39:24.601 --> 39:26.491
the philosophy of being.

39:26.489 --> 39:30.909
In general she takes a
particular and acute interest in

39:30.907 --> 39:31.477
that.

39:31.480 --> 39:36.390
Her basic move is something
that I hope by this time you've

39:36.393 --> 39:40.633
become familiar with and
recognize and perhaps even

39:40.628 --> 39:41.898
anticipate.

39:41.900 --> 39:45.530
For us, perhaps,
the inaugural moves of this

39:45.530 --> 39:48.990
kind were the various
distinctions made by

39:48.994 --> 39:50.434
Levi-Strauss.

39:50.429 --> 39:52.979
The one that I mentioned in
particular--

39:52.980 --> 39:56.800
as accessible and I think
immediately explanatory of how

39:56.798 --> 39:58.938
the move works--
is "the raw"

39:58.938 --> 40:00.068
and "the cooked."

40:00.070 --> 40:03.960
I tried to show that
intuitively, obviously,

40:03.956 --> 40:06.666
the raw precedes the cooked.

40:06.670 --> 40:08.720
First it's raw,
then it's cooked,

40:08.719 --> 40:12.369
and yet at the same time if we
understand the relationship

40:12.373 --> 40:16.543
between the raw and the cooked
to be a discursive formation,

40:16.539 --> 40:20.139
we have to recognize that there
would be no such thing as the

40:20.139 --> 40:22.179
raw if there weren't the cooked.

40:22.179 --> 40:26.839
If you talk about eating a raw
carrot, you have to have had a

40:26.836 --> 40:28.076
cooked carrot.

40:28.079 --> 40:32.039
You don't just pick up a
carrot, which you've never seen

40:32.041 --> 40:35.141
before, and say,
"This is raw."

40:35.139 --> 40:38.889
The only way you know it's raw
is to know that it can be and

40:38.893 --> 40:40.043
has been cooked.

40:40.039 --> 40:44.079
Well, this is the Butler move,
the move that she makes again

40:44.081 --> 40:45.591
and again and again.

40:45.590 --> 40:49.630
What do you mean,
the heterosexual precedes the

40:49.628 --> 40:50.768
homosexual?

40:50.768 --> 40:54.218
What do you mean,
the heterosexual is an original

40:54.219 --> 40:57.239
and the homosexual is just a
copy of it?

40:57.239 --> 41:03.819
Who would ever think of the
concept of the heterosexual?

41:03.820 --> 41:06.710
You're the only person on earth.

41:06.710 --> 41:09.050
You stand there and you say,
"I'm heterosexual."

41:09.050 --> 41:11.340
>

41:11.340 --> 41:12.460
You don't do that.

41:12.460 --> 41:14.390
You just say,
"Well, I have

41:14.394 --> 41:15.524
sexuality."

41:15.519 --> 41:16.759
You could say that.

41:16.760 --> 41:19.300
If you had enough jargon at
your disposal,

41:19.300 --> 41:21.590
you could say that,
but you can't say,

41:21.592 --> 41:23.702
"I am heterosexual."

41:23.699 --> 41:27.029
You can't have the concept
heterosexual without having the

41:27.025 --> 41:28.245
concept homosexual.

41:28.250 --> 41:34.150
They are absolutely mutually
dependent, and it has nothing to

41:34.150 --> 41:39.950
do with any possible truth of a
chicken and egg nature as to

41:39.954 --> 41:42.024
which came first.

41:42.018 --> 41:45.098
In sexuality,
the very strong supposition is

41:45.099 --> 41:47.749
for Butler that neither came
first.

41:47.750 --> 41:53.180
They're always already there
together in that psychic excess

41:53.184 --> 41:56.504
with which we identify
sexuality,

41:56.500 --> 42:00.420
but in social terms the idea
that what's natural is the

42:00.422 --> 42:03.112
heterosexual and what's
unnatural,

42:03.110 --> 42:06.570
secondary, derivative,
and imitative of the

42:06.572 --> 42:11.362
heterosexual is the homosexual
is belied simply by the fact

42:11.355 --> 42:16.215
that you can't have one
conceptually without the other.

42:16.219 --> 42:19.279
It's the same thing with gender
and drag.

42:19.280 --> 42:25.960
Drag comes along and parodies,
mimics, and imitates gender,

42:25.963 --> 42:32.423
but what it points out is that
gender is always in and of

42:32.416 --> 42:36.216
itself precisely performance.

42:36.219 --> 42:39.629
This could, of course,
take the form of a critique,

42:39.628 --> 42:43.378
I suppose, but we're all quite
virtuoso when it comes to

42:43.376 --> 42:44.396
performing.

42:44.400 --> 42:45.200
Here I am.

42:45.199 --> 42:48.679
I'm standing in front of you
performing professionalism.

42:48.679 --> 42:50.689
I'm performing whiteness.

42:50.690 --> 42:53.150
I'm performing masculinity.

42:53.150 --> 42:55.450
I'm doing all of those things.

42:55.449 --> 42:58.759
I'm quite a virtuoso:
what a performance!

42:58.760 --> 43:03.620
>

43:03.619 --> 43:07.289
Perhaps it's kind of hard to
imagine my standing here sort of

43:07.293 --> 43:10.423
exclusively performing
masculinity as opposed to all

43:10.416 --> 43:13.046
the other things that I am
performing,

43:13.050 --> 43:16.060
but okay, I'm certainly doing
that too.

43:16.059 --> 43:19.259
I'm insecure about all of these
things, Butler argues,

43:19.264 --> 43:21.264
because I keep performing them.

43:21.260 --> 43:25.880
In other words,
I keep repeating what I suppose

43:25.882 --> 43:27.392
myself to be.

43:27.389 --> 43:32.499
I'm not comfortable in my skin,
presumably, and I don't just

43:32.498 --> 43:36.048
relax into what I suppose myself
to be.

43:36.050 --> 43:37.470
I perform it.

43:37.469 --> 43:42.369
It is, in other words,
a perpetual self-construction

43:42.373 --> 43:45.453
which does two things at once.

43:45.449 --> 43:48.939
It stabilizes my identity,
which is its intention,

43:48.940 --> 43:53.750
but at the same time it betrays
my anxiety about my identity in

43:53.748 --> 43:57.858
that I must perpetually repeat
it to keep it going.

43:57.860 --> 44:02.300
All of this is going on in this
notion of performance,

44:02.297 --> 44:07.737
so what drag does is precisely
bring all this to our attention.

44:07.739 --> 44:12.479
It shows us once and for all
that that's what's at stake in

44:12.481 --> 44:17.141
the seemingly natural categories
of gender that we imagine

44:17.139 --> 44:22.289
ourselves to inhabit like a set
of comfortable old clothes.

44:22.289 --> 44:25.009
Drag, which is not at all
comfortable old clothes,

44:25.005 --> 44:26.775
reminds >

44:26.780 --> 44:32.880
us how awkward the apparel of
ourselves that we can call our

44:32.880 --> 44:38.050
identity actually is,
and so it plays that role.

44:38.050 --> 44:42.040
The relationship between
identity and performance is just

44:42.036 --> 44:42.816
the same.

44:42.820 --> 44:46.520
This notion of performing
identity should recall for you

44:46.518 --> 44:50.018
"signifyin'"
in the thinking of Henry Louis

44:50.016 --> 44:50.686
Gates.

44:50.690 --> 44:53.720
It should recall for you,
in other words,

44:53.719 --> 44:58.009
the way in which the identity
of another is appropriated

44:58.005 --> 45:00.925
through parody,
through derision,

45:00.927 --> 45:05.837
through self-distancing,
and through a sense of the way

45:05.835 --> 45:11.265
in which one is something
precisely insofar as one is not

45:11.268 --> 45:15.838
simply inhabiting the subject
position of another.

45:15.840 --> 45:20.090
It should also recall for you
the "sly civility"

45:20.085 --> 45:23.205
of the subaltern in Homi
Bhabha's thinking:

45:23.213 --> 45:27.163
the way in which double
consciousness is partly in the

45:27.161 --> 45:32.241
subject position of another,
partly in one's own in such a

45:32.239 --> 45:37.179
way that one liberates oneself
from the sense that it's the

45:37.179 --> 45:42.289
other person who is authentic
and that one is oneself somehow

45:42.291 --> 45:47.731
derivative,
subordinate, and dependent.

45:47.730 --> 45:53.220
All of these relations ought to
gel in your minds as belonging

45:53.224 --> 45:57.014
very much to the same sphere of
thought.

45:57.010 --> 46:03.680
The way in which you can't have
the raw without the cooked is

46:03.684 --> 46:07.414
the way in which,
generally speaking,

46:07.407 --> 46:11.577
categories of self and other
and of identity per se

46:11.583 --> 46:15.763
simply can't be thought in
stable terms in and for

46:15.760 --> 46:19.800
themselves,
but only relationally.

46:19.800 --> 46:24.590
Now "why is this literary
theory?"

46:24.590 --> 46:28.460
you ask yourself,
or you have been asking

46:28.463 --> 46:29.533
yourself.

46:29.530 --> 46:33.660
Of course, Butler gives the
greatest example at the end of

46:33.661 --> 46:37.651
her essay when she says,
"Suppose Aretha is singing

46:37.650 --> 46:38.810
to me."

46:38.809 --> 46:41.489
"You make me feel,"
not a natural woman,

46:41.485 --> 46:43.535
because there's no such thing
as natural.

46:43.539 --> 46:46.449
"You make me feel
like a natural

46:46.452 --> 46:49.772
woman," "you"
presumably being some

46:49.771 --> 46:53.841
hetero-normative other who shows
me what it is really to be a

46:53.836 --> 46:54.646
woman.

46:54.650 --> 46:57.130
Suppose, however,
"Aretha is singing to

46:57.132 --> 47:00.252
me," or suppose she is
singing to a drag queen.

47:00.250 --> 47:01.560
That is reading.

47:01.559 --> 47:07.759
That's reading a song text in a
way that is, precisely,

47:07.762 --> 47:09.832
literary theory.

47:09.829 --> 47:11.059
Now obviously I'm thinking of
Virginia Woolf's Mr.

47:11.057 --> 47:12.437
Ramsay in writing this sentence
[gestures to sentence on

47:12.438 --> 47:13.768
chalkboard: "The
philosopher in a dark mood paced

47:13.766 --> 47:14.616
on his oriental rug."].

47:14.619 --> 47:17.699
It's a terrible sentence for
which I apologize.

47:17.699 --> 47:20.349
Virginia Woolf never would have
written it;

47:20.349 --> 47:24.779
but just to pass in review the
way in which what we've been

47:24.775 --> 47:29.425
doing is literary theory:
the Marxist critic would,

47:29.429 --> 47:31.079
of course, focus on
"his"

47:31.079 --> 47:34.819
because the nexus for the
Marxist critic in this sentence

47:34.815 --> 47:37.695
would be possession--
that is to say,

47:37.699 --> 47:43.009
the deployment of capital such
that a strategy of possession

47:43.010 --> 47:44.630
can be enacted.

47:44.630 --> 47:49.190
The African American critic
would call attention to white

47:49.186 --> 47:53.216
color-coded metaphors,
insisting, in other words,

47:53.222 --> 47:57.772
that one of the ways in which
literature needs to be read is

47:57.769 --> 48:02.089
through a demystification of
processes of metaphorization

48:02.085 --> 48:06.165
whereby white is bright and
sunlit and central,

48:06.170 --> 48:09.610
and black, as Toni Morrison
suggests in her essay,

48:09.610 --> 48:12.050
is an absence,
is a negation,

48:12.045 --> 48:13.955
and is a negativity.

48:13.960 --> 48:16.190
This is bad, a dark mood.

48:16.190 --> 48:20.930
For the postcolonialist critic,
obviously the problem is an

48:20.925 --> 48:25.085
expropriated but also
undifferentiated commodity.

48:25.090 --> 48:28.160
By "Oriental"
you don't mean Oriental.

48:28.159 --> 48:33.219
You mean Kazakh or Bukhara or
Kilim.

48:33.219 --> 48:37.289
In other words,
the very lack of specificity in

48:37.288 --> 48:42.508
the concept suggests the reified
or objectified other in the

48:42.507 --> 48:46.927
imagination or consciousness of
the discourse.

48:46.929 --> 48:52.449
Finally, for gender theory the
masculine anger of the

48:52.447 --> 48:54.217
philosopher,
Mr.

48:54.215 --> 48:57.735
Ramsay--you remember he is so
frustrated because he can't get

48:57.740 --> 48:59.680
past r;
he wants to get to s,

48:59.675 --> 49:00.775
but he can't get past
r--

49:00.780 --> 49:05.770
the masculinized anger of the
philosopher masks the effeteness

49:05.766 --> 49:10.506
of the aestheticism of somebody
who has an Oriental rug.

49:10.510 --> 49:16.420
That in turn might mask the
effete professorial type,

49:16.420 --> 49:21.110
that might mask an
altogether too hetero-normative

49:21.108 --> 49:26.298
sexual predation and on and on
and on dialectically if you read

49:26.300 --> 49:31.240
this sentence as an aspect or
element of gender theory.

49:31.239 --> 49:32.089
Okay.

49:32.090 --> 49:35.190
I will certainly end there,
and next time we'll take up the

49:35.188 --> 49:37.908
way in which what we've been
talking about for a few

49:37.911 --> 49:41.361
lectures,
the construction of identity

49:41.358 --> 49:44.958
and of things,
which has obviously been one of

49:44.960 --> 49:47.420
the common features of this
course,

49:47.420 --> 49:51.790
is theorized at an even more
abstract level,

49:51.789 --> 49:53.719
with certain conclusions.

49:53.719 --> 49:58.999