I?m curious about what the possible thresholds of archaeological and
genealogical analysis tell us about using Foucault?s works as models of
inquiry. Can one, for example, do a Foucauldian analysis when limited
to a large group context---a tribe, a street gang, let?s say? To what
extent are we confined to study situations involving relatively fixed
systems for inscribing statements? In Archaeology of Knowledge it is
suggested that the possibility exists of studying painting, itself,
archaeologically, perhaps in the sense of describing painted
?knowledges? (a much different approach, I think, than his take on Las
Meninas). And then, of course, genealogical inquiry engages the analysis
of power as a ?heterogenous ensemble of effects,? effects no less
implicated in non-verbal than verbal phenomena. But at what threshold
does a ?Foucauldian? analysis loose its (admittedly provisional, or
tactical) grasp on effects one might correlate in an effort to engage
questions of power/knowledge? Must one, for example, study a state-level
society with a sufficient degree of institutional complexity and
redundancy---and must the state have crossed a threshold of "managing
populations"--- for such a genealogy to hang together? What do such
thresholds tell us about using/misusing Foucault?
Additional Questions:
If ?discourse? or ?power? are not quasi-universal categories, but
tentative foci that suggest their own (fuzzy, unfixed) limits, can one
not imagine spaces or events that exceed such a ?Foucauldian glance?? Is
that sort of imagination, perhaps, not a strong component of the sort of
inquiry in question? When one ?does genealogy,? for example, is one also
not ?undoing genealogy??
In addition to an objective methodology, aren?t we also compelled to
follow the sense of Foucault?s texts as self-questioning,
self-disruptive art forms? To the extent one organizes ?Foucault? into
methodological boxes, doesn?t one loose the quality of literary
performance that allows his works to hang together as such?
Was Foucault?s statement, to Jana Sawicki, an injunction for us to be
more ?scientific? and methodologically focused, or an encouragement to
reinvent ourselves through artful, genealogical engagements?
Or both?
If Foucault's writings present a paradigm shift, isn?t aesthetics or
artistry a key dimension of that shift?
genealogical analysis tell us about using Foucault?s works as models of
inquiry. Can one, for example, do a Foucauldian analysis when limited
to a large group context---a tribe, a street gang, let?s say? To what
extent are we confined to study situations involving relatively fixed
systems for inscribing statements? In Archaeology of Knowledge it is
suggested that the possibility exists of studying painting, itself,
archaeologically, perhaps in the sense of describing painted
?knowledges? (a much different approach, I think, than his take on Las
Meninas). And then, of course, genealogical inquiry engages the analysis
of power as a ?heterogenous ensemble of effects,? effects no less
implicated in non-verbal than verbal phenomena. But at what threshold
does a ?Foucauldian? analysis loose its (admittedly provisional, or
tactical) grasp on effects one might correlate in an effort to engage
questions of power/knowledge? Must one, for example, study a state-level
society with a sufficient degree of institutional complexity and
redundancy---and must the state have crossed a threshold of "managing
populations"--- for such a genealogy to hang together? What do such
thresholds tell us about using/misusing Foucault?
Additional Questions:
If ?discourse? or ?power? are not quasi-universal categories, but
tentative foci that suggest their own (fuzzy, unfixed) limits, can one
not imagine spaces or events that exceed such a ?Foucauldian glance?? Is
that sort of imagination, perhaps, not a strong component of the sort of
inquiry in question? When one ?does genealogy,? for example, is one also
not ?undoing genealogy??
In addition to an objective methodology, aren?t we also compelled to
follow the sense of Foucault?s texts as self-questioning,
self-disruptive art forms? To the extent one organizes ?Foucault? into
methodological boxes, doesn?t one loose the quality of literary
performance that allows his works to hang together as such?
Was Foucault?s statement, to Jana Sawicki, an injunction for us to be
more ?scientific? and methodologically focused, or an encouragement to
reinvent ourselves through artful, genealogical engagements?
Or both?
If Foucault's writings present a paradigm shift, isn?t aesthetics or
artistry a key dimension of that shift?