English 456: C20 Criticism and Theory Questions on
Foucault's "What is an Author?" Al Drake | Cyber Cafe | Thurs. 4-6 "What is an Author?" (1969) 1. Foucault initially restates ideas about writing familiar to us by now: the writer disappears into the writing, characterized by the French postmodern term écriture. But what ideas, according to Foucault on 366-67, nonetheless preserve the older concept of authorship? How do they do that? 2. On 369, Foucault initially says that the author's name allows us to group texts and to mark off or delimit those texts from ordinary speech. It seems that cultures will receive and value them in different ways at different times. What four characteristics does Foucault go on to attribute to the author-function? See 369-72. 3. What new kind of author-function is uncovered when Foucault, from 372-74, broadens his discussion from literary texts to "discourses" such as Marxism and psychoanalysis? What is special or new about this kind of author-function? 4. Foucault's conclusion begins on 374. What research undertakings and insights does he say that his analysis of the author-function will open up? How is the author an "ideological product" (375)? 5. How does Foucault's vision of what might follow upon the demise of old-fashioned notions about authorship differ from Roland Barthes' claims in "Death of the Author"? *The reading selection is from Davis, Robert Con and Ronald Schleifer. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. Fourth edition. New York: Longman, 1998. 364-76. "Truth and Power" (1977) 1. From 1136-37, Foucault differentiates between his own thinking and that of structuralists. What significance does the concept of the "event" play in his differentiation? Similarly, why is history better spoken of in terms of war than of language? 2. On 1138, Foucault responds to his interviewer's question by defining his "genealogical approach." How does he characterize this approach? Why doesn't it make sense to describe the task of the genealogist as simply to unmask or demystify "ideology"? 3. From 1139-40, Foucault offers some commentary on power, a term that came to be of great importance to him. Why isn't it right to speak of power as simply repressive and negative? What example of power does he offer to show that power isn't merely negative and repressive? 4. Throughout the essay Foucault is critical of the French Communist Party. Why? One way to construe his opposition is to refer to his comments on 1142-44 about the role of intellectuals since World War II--what promise does Foucault see in the advent of the "specific intellectual"? 5. Compare what Foucault says from 1144-45 about the relation between truth and power to Nietzsche's analysis of truth in "Truth and Falsity in an Ultramoral Sense." How is Foucault indebted to Nietzsche? *The reading selection is from Adams, Hazard. Critical Theory Since Plato. Rev. ed. New York: Harcourt, 1992. 1135-45.
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