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A Testimony to Muzil: Hervé Guibert, Foucault, and the Medical Gaze

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Abstract

Testimony to Muzil: Hervé Guibert, Michel Foucault, and the “Medical Gaze” examines the fictional/autobiographical AIDS writings of the French writer Hervé Guibert. Locating Guibert's writings alongside the work of his friend Michel Foucault, the article explores how they echo Foucault's evolving notions of the “medical gaze.” The article also explores how Guilbert's narrators and Guibert himself (as writer) resist and challenge the medical gaze; a gaze which particularly in the era of AIDS has subjected, objectified, and even sometimes punished the body of the gay man. It is argued that these resistances to the gaze offer a literary extension to Foucault's later work on power and resistance strategies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society, Law and Social Sciences Building, University Park, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    Joanne Rendell

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  1. Joanne Rendell
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Rendell, J. A Testimony to Muzil: Hervé Guibert, Foucault, and the Medical Gaze. Journal of Medical Humanities 25, 33–45 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOMH.0000007449.75328.c6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOMH.0000007449.75328.c6

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