Hello everyone,
before I make some additional comments to what Jim has written, I have to
admit that I am one of those who doesn't speak French, due to at some point
in his life having been brought into Latin instead. Worse, I am using the
German edition. The two Forwards seem to be the "same", but of course the
paging is a completely different one, and I guess it doesn't make much sense
to quote here in German (and I will not call this an imperialism of
language). So I'll try to make my way through counting the _paragraphs_,
taking for granted that these are the same in any edition (which might turn
out to be a quite naive assumption...)
Now, my problem, too, was with that middle ground which I found obscure.
Jim's idea that culture might mean "folk knowledge" hear might solve the
problem I have, which is that I have so far read Foucault as doing kind of a
cultural study. In so far, I guess, I would name the practices in this
"inbetween" as culture. Then again, it seems to me that they are intertwined
with the so-called "folk knowledge". To put it differently: Can these three
"areas" be separated? Aren't they all part of what I would call a broad
cultural discourse?
I have no problems with change here. In par.10 of the Preface to the German
/ English /... edition (the paragraph dealing with the problem of the
subject) F., I guess, gives the hint of what distinguishes him from
structuralism: that he is neither on the side of those privileging the
subject nor on the side of those privileging structures (wherein the latter
one, indeed, would pose serious problems of dealing theoretically with
change), but instead looking for the rules which come into the play through
the existence of discourses. Now if we take that middle space as the
underlying order and say it's a discursive order, built up of discursive
_practices_, it is in a stage of constant change, even if this change is
coming in the form of reproduced continuity.
Does this make any sense to anyone?
Thomas
************************************************************************
PLEASE NOTE:
There has been a restructuring of servers at the University of Mannheim.
Please use the address Thomas.Diez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for your reply.
************************************************************************
Thomas Diez
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research
Mannheimer Zentrum fuer Europaeische Sozialforschung
Steubenstrasse
D-68131 Mannheim
Tel. ++49-(0)621-292-8465
Fax. ++49-(0)621-292-8435
Thomas.Diez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
************************************************************************
------------------
before I make some additional comments to what Jim has written, I have to
admit that I am one of those who doesn't speak French, due to at some point
in his life having been brought into Latin instead. Worse, I am using the
German edition. The two Forwards seem to be the "same", but of course the
paging is a completely different one, and I guess it doesn't make much sense
to quote here in German (and I will not call this an imperialism of
language). So I'll try to make my way through counting the _paragraphs_,
taking for granted that these are the same in any edition (which might turn
out to be a quite naive assumption...)
Now, my problem, too, was with that middle ground which I found obscure.
Jim's idea that culture might mean "folk knowledge" hear might solve the
problem I have, which is that I have so far read Foucault as doing kind of a
cultural study. In so far, I guess, I would name the practices in this
"inbetween" as culture. Then again, it seems to me that they are intertwined
with the so-called "folk knowledge". To put it differently: Can these three
"areas" be separated? Aren't they all part of what I would call a broad
cultural discourse?
I have no problems with change here. In par.10 of the Preface to the German
/ English /... edition (the paragraph dealing with the problem of the
subject) F., I guess, gives the hint of what distinguishes him from
structuralism: that he is neither on the side of those privileging the
subject nor on the side of those privileging structures (wherein the latter
one, indeed, would pose serious problems of dealing theoretically with
change), but instead looking for the rules which come into the play through
the existence of discourses. Now if we take that middle space as the
underlying order and say it's a discursive order, built up of discursive
_practices_, it is in a stage of constant change, even if this change is
coming in the form of reproduced continuity.
Does this make any sense to anyone?
Thomas
************************************************************************
PLEASE NOTE:
There has been a restructuring of servers at the University of Mannheim.
Please use the address Thomas.Diez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for your reply.
************************************************************************
Thomas Diez
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research
Mannheimer Zentrum fuer Europaeische Sozialforschung
Steubenstrasse
D-68131 Mannheim
Tel. ++49-(0)621-292-8465
Fax. ++49-(0)621-292-8435
Thomas.Diez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
************************************************************************
------------------