Coincidentally with the recent request for a definition of discourse, I've
just tripped over one that is, I think, pretty good.
The introduction to Paul Bove's Mastering Discourse, a 1992 collection of
his essays, has an excellent historical and technical definition of the
term, as well as a brief resume of its history through successive waves of
criticism up to and including poststructuralism. He also places Foucault,
and Canguilhem quite effectively in the development of the contemporary
use of the term.
Especially because the volume's title is intentionally ambiguous--he means
it in at least three senses of the term "mastering"---and because it is
also a volume relatively critical of Derrida, deconstruction, Foucault and
lots of other interesting things, I am impressed by his very intelligent,
and unpolemical, introductory definition.
Have any of you out there read the essay on Foucault and madness in this
volume? What did you think of it?
Yours,
Walt