CFP: *50 Years of The History of Sexuality*
Canadian Sociological Association Annual Conference, 2026
Gender & Sexuality Research Cluster
Organizers: Toby Anne Finlay, York University (tfinlay@yorku.ca); Chris Tatham, University of Guelph.
Dates
Call for Abstracts: December 3, 2025 – January 26, 2026
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume I—a work which has profoundly reshaped sociological, feminist, and queer understandings of sexuality, subjectivity, and power. Half a century later, Foucault’s reflections on biopower, discourse, and the production of sexual knowledge continue to animate critical thought, even as contemporary scholars confront new forms of regulation and resistance shaped by rampant global inequality and resurgent moral politics.
This session explores the incredible influence of The History of Sexuality on contemporary social theory and gender and sexuality studies. We invite papers that revisit and revise Foucault’s theorization of the biopolitics of life and death, along with presentations of empirical research on the historical construction and governance of sexuality. We welcome papers that extend Foucault’s genealogies of sexuality and biopolitics to contend with colonial and postcolonial contexts and the evolving technologies of “state racism.” Submissions may explore the biopolitics and necropolitics of life and death, homonationalism and queer sexual citizenship, the medicalization of sex, gender, and sexuality, the biomedical regulation of human reproduction, digital and biometric surveillance technologies, and the persistent possibilities of feminist, queer, and trans resistance.
As we reflect on Foucault’s legacy, we ask what “economy of bodies and pleasures” is made possible by our struggles against the dispositif of sexuality?
Foucault News 