In Article <tannear.44.2E79ADD0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
tannear@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom Annear) writes:
> 'everyone knows these things' and to connect disparate 'facts' in such a way
Not to make a big issue of this, it seems to me that this notion of
disparate facts is question-begging and misses the point. It was exactly
the historian's tendency to uniformatize and demonstrate the obvious
connection between certain 'facts' that Foucault is attacking in all of
his works, and most especially in the sections of Archaeology that deal
with the history of ideas, etc., as well as in the essay on Nietzsche,
Genealogy, History.
On the other hand, your raising of the question of narrative is
interesting. Are you saying that narrative as a form tends to trap the
reader, or are you saying that Foucault--unlike other
narrators--manipulated the form to particular effect? I would certainly
agree with the former. Foucault's "fictions" are indeed narratives, however
unexpected they may be. And I guess he was aware that, unable to step
outside these forms, he was equally complicit in their effects. To single
him out as a particularly coercive sort of narrator, however, seems to me
to depend upon your already-present notion of which facts are not
disparate and how these facts ought to fit together, and his departure from
those discursive norms.
Or, am I misunderstanding your post, in which case I apologize in advance.
tannear@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom Annear) writes:
> 'everyone knows these things' and to connect disparate 'facts' in such a way
Not to make a big issue of this, it seems to me that this notion of
disparate facts is question-begging and misses the point. It was exactly
the historian's tendency to uniformatize and demonstrate the obvious
connection between certain 'facts' that Foucault is attacking in all of
his works, and most especially in the sections of Archaeology that deal
with the history of ideas, etc., as well as in the essay on Nietzsche,
Genealogy, History.
On the other hand, your raising of the question of narrative is
interesting. Are you saying that narrative as a form tends to trap the
reader, or are you saying that Foucault--unlike other
narrators--manipulated the form to particular effect? I would certainly
agree with the former. Foucault's "fictions" are indeed narratives, however
unexpected they may be. And I guess he was aware that, unable to step
outside these forms, he was equally complicit in their effects. To single
him out as a particularly coercive sort of narrator, however, seems to me
to depend upon your already-present notion of which facts are not
disparate and how these facts ought to fit together, and his departure from
those discursive norms.
Or, am I misunderstanding your post, in which case I apologize in advance.