Voluntary Servitude and the Erotics of Friendship

Focusing primarily on three early modern French authors, this book explores the erotics and politics of "voluntary servitude" in classical antiquity and the early modern period. These authors - Etienne de La Boetie, Michel de Montaigne, and Marie de Gournay - pursue related inquiries into voluntary servitude and self-control in marriage, friendship, pederasty and politics. Marc Schachter shows how Montaigne's intimate textual relationship with La Boetie provides him the opportunity to honor his beloved friend while transforming many of his ideas.Similarly, Marie de Gournay's editorial voluntary servitude to Montaigne provides her the occasion to authorize her own practice as a woman author and to engage critically with Montaigne's ideas even as she celebrates her friendship with him. Schachter's analyses are pursued particularly through the lens of Michel Foucualt's concept of governmentality which, like voluntary servitude, operates on three interrelated scales: self-control, control in interpersonal relationships, and political control. Schachter argues that thinking about the function of voluntary servitude through the lens of governmentality leads to a more nuanced understanding both of Foucault's late work and of the transformational possibilities offered by friendship and voluntary servitude in early modern France.

ISBN 0754664597   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780754664598 (What's this?)   Pages 256 Publisher Ashgate Publishing Group   Volumes 001 Imprint Ashgate Publishing Limited   Published in Aldershot Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 17 Oct 2008   Width (mm) 156 Library of Congress HM1266   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY 123.5

		List of Figures
		A Note on Texts and Translations
Introduction		Voluntary Servitude, Governmentality and the Care of the Self		1
1		Voluntary Servitude and the Politics of Pederasty in Plato's Symposium		23
2		Critique and Governmentality in La Boetie's Mesnagerie de Xenophon and Servitude volontaire		39
3		Montaigne's "Voluntary Liberty" and the Politics of Friendship		73
4		Friendly Usurpations: Gournay and Montaigne		115
5		The Erotics of Friendship and the Politics of Love		145
		A Conclusion in Three Parts: The Art of Voluntary Inservitude		187
		Bibliography		195
		Index		213

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