cover image Discourses of Sexuality: From Aristotle to AIDS

Discourses of Sexuality: From Aristotle to AIDS

. University of Michigan Press, $25.95 (432pp) ISBN 978-0-472-06513-4

In this anthology Stanton ( The Aristocrat as Art ) has gathered essays from several of today's most innovative historians and critics, and the result is an often enjoyable, sometimes overly academic reading of the place of sexuality in contemporary culture. All of the essays in some way engage French critic Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality . Catherine MacKinnon presents perhaps the most delightful contribution as she irreverently discusses the current state of debates over sexual and power politics. Abdul JanMohamed and Mae Henderson offer intriguing readings of the relationship between race and sexuality. Patricia Yaeger's essay examines how we talk about--or fail to talk about--giving birth. The illustrations that accompany several of the essays provide rich grounds for discussion of images of sexality in American culture. The book concludes with a hard-hitting section on the various meanings of AIDS and its impact on discussions of sexuality. Though not easily accessible, this provocative volume should find an audience among serious readers. Stanton's complicated introduction is overlong, and more of the best material could have come early in the volume. (Feb.)