The Civilizing Process and The History of Sexuality: Comparing Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault
نویسنده
چکیده
This article has three tasks. The ¢rst is to demonstrate that a high degree of overlap in argument and method exists between two major works by thinkers who are usually regarded as being fundamentally opposed in their approaches to understanding society. The two works are Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process and Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, especially the second and third volumes entitled, respectively,The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self. The second task is to identify some key modi¢cations in Foucault's treatment of history, power, and knowledge that occurred between his earlier work, for example Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish, and his later work, especially The History of Sexuality. The third objective is to set out a research agenda that confronts some of the main issues arising from a consideration of some important remaining di¡erences between Elias and Foucault.
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