Hi Penelope,
At 17:08 11.01.97 -0500, you wrote:
>... the question I'd like to contribute to this discussion is this: what is at
>stake when application is at stake? Or, better, is it possible to think in,
>by and through Foucault's work without closing off the possibilities and
>impossibilities of problematization? And, further, what is at stake in
>asking questions of Foucault's work, of extending, supplementing and
>problematizing the work?
>
>
Replying to your question of what is at stake when we're talking about the
application or the use of Foucault, couldn't one take one step back to
Foucault's own questioning about what he called the "pratiques discursives"?
It seems to me that he's trying to conceptualize (and to practise) a kind of
"theory" which deconstructs the opposition between what is traditionally
called theory and application. So, if we use Foucault as a "model", couldn't
we, instead of searching in his writings "tools" for immediate action, try
to practise - by analogy - his way of using existing discursive practices in
order to construct a new one?
Perhaps, "praxis" in the discursive field is not so different from praxis in
the empirical one. As somebody using Foucault in a discursive way, I don't
feel competent to cite some probably rather naive example of empirical
praxis, but I can give a bibliographical indication: Michel de Certeau,
"L'invention du quotidien", 2 vols (1. Arts de faire / 2. Habiter,
cuisiner), Paris (folio essais) '90.
Joerg
At 17:08 11.01.97 -0500, you wrote:
>... the question I'd like to contribute to this discussion is this: what is at
>stake when application is at stake? Or, better, is it possible to think in,
>by and through Foucault's work without closing off the possibilities and
>impossibilities of problematization? And, further, what is at stake in
>asking questions of Foucault's work, of extending, supplementing and
>problematizing the work?
>
>
Replying to your question of what is at stake when we're talking about the
application or the use of Foucault, couldn't one take one step back to
Foucault's own questioning about what he called the "pratiques discursives"?
It seems to me that he's trying to conceptualize (and to practise) a kind of
"theory" which deconstructs the opposition between what is traditionally
called theory and application. So, if we use Foucault as a "model", couldn't
we, instead of searching in his writings "tools" for immediate action, try
to practise - by analogy - his way of using existing discursive practices in
order to construct a new one?
Perhaps, "praxis" in the discursive field is not so different from praxis in
the empirical one. As somebody using Foucault in a discursive way, I don't
feel competent to cite some probably rather naive example of empirical
praxis, but I can give a bibliographical indication: Michel de Certeau,
"L'invention du quotidien", 2 vols (1. Arts de faire / 2. Habiter,
cuisiner), Paris (folio essais) '90.
Joerg