Friendship As a Way of Life : Foucault, AIDS, and the Politics of Shared Estrangement

__Develops Foucault's late work on friendship into a novel critique of contemporary GLBT political strategy. Borrowing its title from a 1981 interview of Michel Foucault, __Friendship as a Way of Life____develops the philosopher's late work on friendship into a novel critique of contemporary GLBT political strategy. Tom Roach brings to life Foucault's scant but suggestive writings on friendship (some translated here for the first time), emphasizing their ethical implications and advancing a new and politically viable concept--friendship as shared estrangement. In exploring the potential of this model for understanding not only social movements such as ACT UP and the AIDS buddy system, but the literary and artistic work of Hervé Guibert and David Wojnarowicz as well, Roach seeks to reclaim a politics of friendship for queer activism. The first book devoted exclusively to Foucault's work on the subject, it reassesses Foucaultian queer theory in light of the recent publication of the philosopher's final seminars at the Collège de France. Its provocative thesis returns Foucault's concept of biopower to its home in sexuality studies and places queer theory front and center in current biopolitical debates.____ Develops Foucault's late work on friendship into a novel critique of contemporary GLBT political strategy. Borrowing its title from a 1981 interview of Michel Foucault, Friendship as a Way of Life develops the philosopher's late work on friendship into a novel critique of contemporary GLBT political strategy. Tom Roach brings to life Foucault's scant but suggestive writings on friendship (some translated here for the first time), emphasizing their ethical implications and advancing a new and politically viable concept--friendship as shared estrangement. In exploring the potential of this model for understanding not only social movements such as ACT UP and the AIDS buddy system, but the literary and artistic work of Hervé Guibert and David Wojnarowicz as well, Roach seeks to reclaim a politics of friendship for queer activism. The first book devoted exclusively to Foucault's work on the subject, it reassesses Foucaultian queer theory in light of the recent publication of the philosopher's final seminars at the Collège de France. Its provocative thesis returns Foucault's concept of biopower to its home in sexuality studies and places queer theory front and center in current biopolitical debates. Introduction : between friends A letter and its implications An ethics of discomfort Ontology matters Labors of love : biopower, AIDS, and the buddy system Common sense and a politics of shared estrangement Epilogue : whatever friends.