Histoire de la sexualité ‘4’ (Les aveux de la chair): Aantekeninge vanuit die Nederlandse Foucault-navorsing

Abstract

Histoire de la sexualité ‘4’ (Les aveux de la chair): Notes from the Dutch Foucault-scholarship. This article presents an overview of several Dutch disseminations of Michel Foucault’s (1926–1984) Histoire de la sexualité 4 (Les aveux de la chair), since its publication on 8 February 2018 at Gallimard (Paris) under editorship of Frédéric Gros. The exposé positions itself in terms of the most recent (December 2019) outputs of Foucault Cirkel Nederland/België (via the contributions of Steven Dorrestijn, Waldo Heugebaert and Michiel Leezenberg), as well as the recent critical studies of Machiel Karskens and Leezenberg. Several text-critical considerations regarding Les aveux de la chair are presented from these interpretations, in relation to the three standing volumes of Histoire de la sexualité (La volonté de savoir, December 1976, L’usage des plaisirs, May 1984, and Le souci de soi, June 1984). Foucault’s exclusion of posthumous publications of his unfinished texts is amplified, since Les aveux de la chair (its sources and time of composition notwithstanding), is indeed a posthumous publication in the strict sense of the word: this aspect is, however, understated in the above receptions, albeit on justifiable grounds (in the sense that the text is regarded to be based fundamentally on Foucault’s 1981–1982 Collège de France lectures and was therefore effectively ‘published’ by June 1984). The recent Dutch reception is in conclusion described as exceptionally erudite and rigorous in its exegesis and reviews of Les aveux de la chair in the span of just two years.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This dissemination of Michel Foucault’s Histoire de la sexualité 4 (Les aveux de la chair) impacts various other disciplines, inter alia Studies in Antiquity, Medieval Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Patrology, Church History and Philosophy of Religion.