Quentin,
Thanks for this response. I think you're being entirely sensible here, and I
guess my response to the Bad Writing mail was perhaps overly polemical. But
it does make me annoyed. The implicit assumption of those who judge this is
that this thought SHOULD be readily understood. Clearly the proposer of
Bhabha didn't know his Foucault: whose fault is that? Is it Bhabha's? Did
the reader of Butler understand Althusser, Gramsci and their critique?
Should writers have to clarify everything they write about before pushing
forward? Why waste valuable words on something that many people will fast
forward through to get to the heart of the original thought? How many people
read Bhabha or Butler as an introduction? There are plenty of books doing
that purpose.
But yes, I agree there is an 'occluded middle here'. I've spent a lot of
time working on Foucault and Heidegger particularly, and found the going
tough at the outset. Now it's still difficult, but the difficulty is of
another level. I admit to being a bit of purist, and thinking that there is
no substitute for hard work. Heidegger, for example, shouldn't be readily
comprehensible. He assumed a great deal of background knowledge in his work:
who can blame him. And when he is bastardised to suit the purposes of a
wider audience I can't help but feel that something serious is missing.
Similarly Foucault. Particularly on the issue of space (one of my key
interests), there is a lot of simplifying material that does him no service
at all. It's a primary motive of my thesis to force people to realise that
using Foucault on space is NOT simple, that it must be attentive to the
tensions in his work, his use of Heidegger etc.
An American professor friend suggested that I should write a book that
showed the Heideggerian roots of Foucault's thought, so that Foucauldians
'need not read any more Heidegger'. I'm not sure that's what I want to do -
though he is probably right that there is a market for such a book. Rather,
I would like to write a book that shows the Heideggerian roots of Foucault's
thought, so that Foucauldians want to go back to Heidegger for enriched
understandings, and critical distance from my own take.
But, that doesn't mean it needs to be willfully obscure. I hope that my work
is comprehensible to those prepared to make a little effort.
Best wishes
Stuart
Thanks for this response. I think you're being entirely sensible here, and I
guess my response to the Bad Writing mail was perhaps overly polemical. But
it does make me annoyed. The implicit assumption of those who judge this is
that this thought SHOULD be readily understood. Clearly the proposer of
Bhabha didn't know his Foucault: whose fault is that? Is it Bhabha's? Did
the reader of Butler understand Althusser, Gramsci and their critique?
Should writers have to clarify everything they write about before pushing
forward? Why waste valuable words on something that many people will fast
forward through to get to the heart of the original thought? How many people
read Bhabha or Butler as an introduction? There are plenty of books doing
that purpose.
But yes, I agree there is an 'occluded middle here'. I've spent a lot of
time working on Foucault and Heidegger particularly, and found the going
tough at the outset. Now it's still difficult, but the difficulty is of
another level. I admit to being a bit of purist, and thinking that there is
no substitute for hard work. Heidegger, for example, shouldn't be readily
comprehensible. He assumed a great deal of background knowledge in his work:
who can blame him. And when he is bastardised to suit the purposes of a
wider audience I can't help but feel that something serious is missing.
Similarly Foucault. Particularly on the issue of space (one of my key
interests), there is a lot of simplifying material that does him no service
at all. It's a primary motive of my thesis to force people to realise that
using Foucault on space is NOT simple, that it must be attentive to the
tensions in his work, his use of Heidegger etc.
An American professor friend suggested that I should write a book that
showed the Heideggerian roots of Foucault's thought, so that Foucauldians
'need not read any more Heidegger'. I'm not sure that's what I want to do -
though he is probably right that there is a market for such a book. Rather,
I would like to write a book that shows the Heideggerian roots of Foucault's
thought, so that Foucauldians want to go back to Heidegger for enriched
understandings, and critical distance from my own take.
But, that doesn't mean it needs to be willfully obscure. I hope that my work
is comprehensible to those prepared to make a little effort.
Best wishes
Stuart