On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, Ian Robert Douglas wrote:
> I've no doubt, if alive, Foucault would be talking about Kosovo; can't we
> talk about Kosovo without talking about him? With many other listserv
> groups I'm in favour of a division of labour, but with Foucault--just
> simply because of the man--I find it difficult to separate the relevant
> from the not so relevant (I know Clare you weren't saying Kosovo is beyond
> our remit). Sometimes it doesn't even stop at my shopping list, but then
> that only goes to show that indeed, we can think Foucault without having to
> name him.
I agree. I think we may have reached the point with Foucault where
further "Foucauldian analyses" are pointless (with apologies to those
still looking for "a Foucauldian analysis of the market";). By now, it
seems to me, these have--to some extent, anyway--become academic exercises
which, in fact, cut against the grain of Foucault's most basic
Heideggerian impulse to make us *alive* to things. Foucault said of his
Marxist critics (and here comes another of those inevitable quotes) that
if they didn't see Marx in his work it was their own fault for not knowing
Marx well enough to be able to recognize him without the footnotes. And
of course he said of Heidegger and Nietzsche that it is the thinkers you
don't write about who are often most present in your writing.
I suppose that we are all Foucauldians here, insofar as we have all been
affected indelibly by his work. I know that Orpheus has been. I don't
see why this could not be a place not only for Foucauldian writing but
also for Foucauldians to write.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------
> I've no doubt, if alive, Foucault would be talking about Kosovo; can't we
> talk about Kosovo without talking about him? With many other listserv
> groups I'm in favour of a division of labour, but with Foucault--just
> simply because of the man--I find it difficult to separate the relevant
> from the not so relevant (I know Clare you weren't saying Kosovo is beyond
> our remit). Sometimes it doesn't even stop at my shopping list, but then
> that only goes to show that indeed, we can think Foucault without having to
> name him.
I agree. I think we may have reached the point with Foucault where
further "Foucauldian analyses" are pointless (with apologies to those
still looking for "a Foucauldian analysis of the market";). By now, it
seems to me, these have--to some extent, anyway--become academic exercises
which, in fact, cut against the grain of Foucault's most basic
Heideggerian impulse to make us *alive* to things. Foucault said of his
Marxist critics (and here comes another of those inevitable quotes) that
if they didn't see Marx in his work it was their own fault for not knowing
Marx well enough to be able to recognize him without the footnotes. And
of course he said of Heidegger and Nietzsche that it is the thinkers you
don't write about who are often most present in your writing.
I suppose that we are all Foucauldians here, insofar as we have all been
affected indelibly by his work. I know that Orpheus has been. I don't
see why this could not be a place not only for Foucauldian writing but
also for Foucauldians to write.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------