A brilliant, challenging contribution to the history of ideas.
The long-awaited culmination of the noted historian and philosopher’s multivolume work on human sexuality.
It has long been rumored that acolytes of Foucault, who died in 1984, would complete a work that the scholar intended to remain incomplete, having publicly stated that he wanted no posthumous publications. While it is true, writes Gros, that some of the draft work in the History of Sexuality series will not be published, the present volume was substantially complete. The subject is largely the “problematization of the flesh by the Christian fathers,” involving exegetical and teleological leaps. Following the teachings of second-century apologist Justin, it is dogma that one has sex only to produce children. This being a Foucauldian investigation, there are fascinating wrinkles and arcana aplenty. In the case of Justin, for instance, sex figures in a long catalog of “a code for living,” one that includes what one should drink, what sorts of shoes and jewelry are appropriate to Christians, what kind of furniture one should buy, etc. For his part, Clement of Alexandria and other theologians further the insistence that sex is for procreation, but again with a wrinkle, namely the “seemingly rather arbitrary distinction that Clement introduces between the generation of progeny, which must be the ‘goal’ of sexual relations, and the value of having descendants, which must be its ‘end.’ ” Foucault also explores how Adam and Eve must have been virgins, according to Augustine and others, operating along the lines of sexual magic that incorporates parthenogenesis, while the sexual act followed by later humans is an aspect of a “paroxysmal bloc” that binds together “sex, truth, and law.” That bloc was also closely monitored, surrounded by prescriptions and proscriptions, and governed by “a very precise codification of the moments, the initiatives, the invitations, the acceptances, the refusals, the positions, the gestures, the caresses, even the words…that can take place in sexual relations.”
A brilliant, challenging contribution to the history of ideas.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4803-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.
Antisemitism is alive and well and worth talking about.
Fersko, senior rabbi at the Village Temple in Manhattan and vice president of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, argues that Americans of all backgrounds must discuss antisemitism. The author notes that many people view antisemitism as a problem of the past, an issue that is rare and isolated in 21st-century America. She demonstrates convincingly that this mindset is misinformed and that antisemitism is on the rise. Early on Fersko provides a lengthy explanation of antisemitism as “the longest-held, farthest-reaching conspiracy theory in the world.” She explains that antisemitism is a belief in a variety of lies and stereotypes about Jews and Judaism, which manifests in everything from seemingly innocuous remarks to outright physical violence. Fersko points to seven points of dialogue that Jews and non-Jews need to address in order to help battle antisemitism, including race, Christianity, microaggressions, the Holocaust, and Israel. Throughout, she urges readers to educate themselves about the past and to learn to recognize the prejudices about Jews that many Americans inherit unknowingly. Though Fersko addresses such obvious sources of antisemitism as right-wing and racially based extremist groups, she makes it clear throughout the book that the American left is also a major source of antisemitism today. In some cases, this is seen in virulent anti-Israel stances, where left-wing activists portray Jews as racists and oppressors. In other cases, American liberals simply perpetrate tropes and stereotypes about their Jewish friends and neighbors, often through microaggressions, misplaced humor, miseducation about the Holocaust, etc. Though there are certainly points for debate, the text serves as a meaningful starting point for dialogue. If nothing else, she provides the important reminder that the age-old specter of antisemitism is not extinct; in many ways, it’s stronger and more dangerous than at any time since the Holocaust.
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9781541601949
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tender, well-rendered, heart-wrenching account of the way food ties us to those who have passed.
A poignant memoir about a mother’s love as told through Korean food.
Losing a parent is one thing, but to also lose direct ties to one’s culture in the process is its own tragedy. In this expansion of her popular 2018 New Yorker essay, Zauner, best known as the founder of indie rock group Japanese Breakfast, grapples with what it means to be severed from her Korean heritage following her mother’s battle with cancer. In an attempt to honor and remember her umma, the author sought to replicate the flavors of her upbringing. Throughout, the author delivers mouthwatering descriptions of dishes like pajeon, jatjuk, and gimbap, and her storytelling is fluid, honest, and intimate. Aptly, Zauner frames her story amid the aisles of H Mart, a place many Asian Americans will recognize, a setting that allows the author to situate her personal story as part of a broader conversation about diasporic culture, a powerful force that eludes ownership. The memoir will feel familiar to children of immigrants, whose complicated relationships to family are often paralleled by equally strenuous relationships with their food. It will also resonate with a larger audience due to the author’s validation of the different ways that parents can show their love—if not verbally, then certainly through their ability to nourish. “I wanted to embody a physical warning—that if she began to disappear, I would disappear too,” writes Zauner as she discusses the deterioration of her mother’s health, when both stopped eating. When a loved one dies, we search all of our senses for signs of their presence. Zauner’s ability to let us in through taste makes her book stand out from others with similar themes. She makes us feel like we are in her mother’s kitchen, singing her praises.
A tender, well-rendered, heart-wrenching account of the way food ties us to those who have passed.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-65774-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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