The sex of power

This year's lecture extends and clarifies the inquiry into " politiques de l'amour ", which attempts to articulate the art of loving and the art of governing from the ^12th to the ^16thcenturies -  fromone reform to another, but also from one renaissance to another. The aim is still to place the history of political subjectivity to the test of new historiographical approaches to gender, emotion and sexuality, but to tackle the question of violence, domination and pleasure more head-on. By paying greater attention to the " valence différenciée des sexes " referred to by Françoise Héritier, the history of power does not get stuck in the dreary repetition of the invariant effects of male domination. On the contrary, we revitalize it, bringing to light unsuspected inventiveness, ambivalence and fluidity.