On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Erik D Lindberg wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Bryan Palmer wrote:
>
> > If this all seems a little rambling and unfocused, I am sorry, I am
> > struggling to find plainer language in which to express the anguish I feel.
> > Unfortunately, I suspect I am being accused of wasting your (plural) time;
> > and as our interactions have become a little ritualistic, I will withdraw to
> > think more about the kind of dialectic that allows me to move forward.
>
> I don't think that you should imagine that you are wasting time (not mine
> at least). This has been the best thread on this list in months.
> Foucault never missed an opportunity to learn more about govt. or
> institutional practices. So don't stop, and share any sort of
> dialectical movement you create.
>
> Fraser's book, which interestingly from your standpoint, has about 8
> chapters that are pretty theoretical (on Foucault, Derrida, Habermas,
> Rorty), and about 2 "applied" chapters, might give you some ideas.
>
> Nancy Fraser, _Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in
> Contemporary Social Theory_ (Minnesota UP, 1989).
>
> Although I would disagree with his Habermasian turn at the end, check out
> John McGowan, _Postmodernism and its Critics_ (Cornell UP, 1991).>
>
> Erik D. Lindberg
> Dept. of English and Comparative Lit.
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> Milwaukee, WI 53211
> email: edl@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
Here's a quote from foucault that i find very interesting, especially as
it relates to Bryan's initial question of using focault's work for policy
intervention:
"All my books, whether Histoire de la folie or this one [Discipline and
Punish], are little toolboxes, if you will. If people are willing to
open them and make use of such and such a sentence or idea, of one
analysis or another, as they would a screwdriver or a monkey wrench, in
order to short circuit or disqualify systems of power, including even
possibly the ones my books come out of, well, all the better." P.237
Eribon, D.1991. Michel Foucault. Harvard University Press.
Wasn't much of foucault's activism, i.e. Groupe d'Informatin sur les
Prisons, policy interventions ? And not all of his interventions yielded
the results he expected of them, i.e. the Iranian revolution....
If power is strategy, I would like to know why policy mechanisms can't be
used to short-circuit existing forms of power ?
Nancy Fraser's book is very useful but I am not in agreement with her
conclusions on foucault and his "project."
Have you tried looking at Michael Kelley's "Critique of Power" ? It's an
extension of the foucault/habermas debate, and also has one of Fraser's
essays from "unruly practices ..".
divakar
------------------
> On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Bryan Palmer wrote:
>
> > If this all seems a little rambling and unfocused, I am sorry, I am
> > struggling to find plainer language in which to express the anguish I feel.
> > Unfortunately, I suspect I am being accused of wasting your (plural) time;
> > and as our interactions have become a little ritualistic, I will withdraw to
> > think more about the kind of dialectic that allows me to move forward.
>
> I don't think that you should imagine that you are wasting time (not mine
> at least). This has been the best thread on this list in months.
> Foucault never missed an opportunity to learn more about govt. or
> institutional practices. So don't stop, and share any sort of
> dialectical movement you create.
>
> Fraser's book, which interestingly from your standpoint, has about 8
> chapters that are pretty theoretical (on Foucault, Derrida, Habermas,
> Rorty), and about 2 "applied" chapters, might give you some ideas.
>
> Nancy Fraser, _Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in
> Contemporary Social Theory_ (Minnesota UP, 1989).
>
> Although I would disagree with his Habermasian turn at the end, check out
> John McGowan, _Postmodernism and its Critics_ (Cornell UP, 1991).>
>
> Erik D. Lindberg
> Dept. of English and Comparative Lit.
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> Milwaukee, WI 53211
> email: edl@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
Here's a quote from foucault that i find very interesting, especially as
it relates to Bryan's initial question of using focault's work for policy
intervention:
"All my books, whether Histoire de la folie or this one [Discipline and
Punish], are little toolboxes, if you will. If people are willing to
open them and make use of such and such a sentence or idea, of one
analysis or another, as they would a screwdriver or a monkey wrench, in
order to short circuit or disqualify systems of power, including even
possibly the ones my books come out of, well, all the better." P.237
Eribon, D.1991. Michel Foucault. Harvard University Press.
Wasn't much of foucault's activism, i.e. Groupe d'Informatin sur les
Prisons, policy interventions ? And not all of his interventions yielded
the results he expected of them, i.e. the Iranian revolution....
If power is strategy, I would like to know why policy mechanisms can't be
used to short-circuit existing forms of power ?
Nancy Fraser's book is very useful but I am not in agreement with her
conclusions on foucault and his "project."
Have you tried looking at Michael Kelley's "Critique of Power" ? It's an
extension of the foucault/habermas debate, and also has one of Fraser's
essays from "unruly practices ..".
divakar
------------------