An interesting article, which contrasts Foucault and Said is
Paul Bové's "Intellectuals at War," *SubStance* 9 (4), 1983, pp. 36-55
Personally, I've never seen Said as particularly Foucualdian. The
comparison seems to turn entirely on the idea that Said's orientalism is "a
discourse." But although Said may use the term "discourse" (as does
practically everyone these days), I do not think a close reading of his text
would clearly support the idea. On the contrary, it has always seemed to me
that what Said offers is really much more of a classical ideological
analysis --viz. orientalism, rather than being a "discourse," is in fact
simply an ideology. It's true that Said describes orientalism in various
places as having "constituted" its object (which makes it sound very much
like a discourse), but the overall tenor of his argument is that orientalism
is a *false *picture preventing the west from seeing the reality of the
non-west.
If Foucault is to be critiqued on postcolonial grounds, I think we'd do
better to look to Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Unlike Said,
whose critique of Foucault is ultimately made on humanist grounds (and
without showing much evidence of actually having understood Foucault's
project), Spivak understands Foucault very well and critiques him, not by
herself returning to humanism ( à la Said), but by going in the exact
opposite direction: identifying a residual humanism in Foucualt's own
writing. (Spivak's anti-humanist critique is, in turn, linked to her
postcolonial colonial critique, but I won't try to unpack that dimension of
her argument now.)
Regards,
Nate Roberts
On Nov 8, 2007 3:27 AM, David McInerney <vagabond@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Cheers, I'm interested in this too so I'll try to track them down.
>
> Javed Majeed does a sort of round-about critique of Said in his book
> on James Mill (Ungoverned Imaginings), tries to replace Foucault with
> Taylor and ends up with not much Said ... I don't think Majeed had
> read that much Foucault when he wrote the book, just noted some
> effects of the way Said reads Foucault (without noting that it is a
> very specific reading) and then Taylor's reading of Foucault, which
> seems in many ways similar to Said's, so that Taylor's critique of
> Foucault could then be applied to Said to resurrect the Subject and
> then, subsequently, a multicultural form of liberalism.
>
> What a convoluted sentence. Sorry. I hope it makes sense!
>
>
> On 08/11/2007, at 12:07 PM, Seda Mimaroglu wrote:
>
> > I'm afraid not the answer you are looking for but lately I came
> > across two
> > articles that may be of interest:
> > Uta Liebmann Schaub "Foucault's Oriental Subtext"
> > PMLA Vol. 104 No. 3. p.306-316 (1989)
> >
> > Rosemarie Scullion "Foucault the Orientalist"
> > South Central Review Vol. 12 No. 2. p.16-40 (1995)
> >
> > I believe the Schaub article was discussed here as well.
> > best,
> >
> > seda mimaroglu.
> >
> >
> > On Nov 8, 2007 12:39 AM, Mehmet Kentel <mehmet.kentel@xxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> Working on Edward Said's Orientalism for a while, I am wondering if
> >> Foucault had said anything about Said's work. The book, after all,
> >> was
> >> published in 1978 and it got immediate response both from academic
> >> circles and popular media. Being a work deeply based on Foucault's
> >> analysis of discourse, I guess Orientalism must have had taken
> >> attention of Foucault too in a six-years time. A brief search,
> >> though,
> >> didn't come up with anything. Do you know any article or interview
> >> where Foucault talks about Said?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Mehmet Kentel
> >>
> >> Boğaziçi University
> >> Department of Political Science & International Relations
> >> Department of History
> >> Undergrad.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Foucault-L mailing list
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
Paul Bové's "Intellectuals at War," *SubStance* 9 (4), 1983, pp. 36-55
Personally, I've never seen Said as particularly Foucualdian. The
comparison seems to turn entirely on the idea that Said's orientalism is "a
discourse." But although Said may use the term "discourse" (as does
practically everyone these days), I do not think a close reading of his text
would clearly support the idea. On the contrary, it has always seemed to me
that what Said offers is really much more of a classical ideological
analysis --viz. orientalism, rather than being a "discourse," is in fact
simply an ideology. It's true that Said describes orientalism in various
places as having "constituted" its object (which makes it sound very much
like a discourse), but the overall tenor of his argument is that orientalism
is a *false *picture preventing the west from seeing the reality of the
non-west.
If Foucault is to be critiqued on postcolonial grounds, I think we'd do
better to look to Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Unlike Said,
whose critique of Foucault is ultimately made on humanist grounds (and
without showing much evidence of actually having understood Foucault's
project), Spivak understands Foucault very well and critiques him, not by
herself returning to humanism ( à la Said), but by going in the exact
opposite direction: identifying a residual humanism in Foucualt's own
writing. (Spivak's anti-humanist critique is, in turn, linked to her
postcolonial colonial critique, but I won't try to unpack that dimension of
her argument now.)
Regards,
Nate Roberts
On Nov 8, 2007 3:27 AM, David McInerney <vagabond@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Cheers, I'm interested in this too so I'll try to track them down.
>
> Javed Majeed does a sort of round-about critique of Said in his book
> on James Mill (Ungoverned Imaginings), tries to replace Foucault with
> Taylor and ends up with not much Said ... I don't think Majeed had
> read that much Foucault when he wrote the book, just noted some
> effects of the way Said reads Foucault (without noting that it is a
> very specific reading) and then Taylor's reading of Foucault, which
> seems in many ways similar to Said's, so that Taylor's critique of
> Foucault could then be applied to Said to resurrect the Subject and
> then, subsequently, a multicultural form of liberalism.
>
> What a convoluted sentence. Sorry. I hope it makes sense!
>
>
> On 08/11/2007, at 12:07 PM, Seda Mimaroglu wrote:
>
> > I'm afraid not the answer you are looking for but lately I came
> > across two
> > articles that may be of interest:
> > Uta Liebmann Schaub "Foucault's Oriental Subtext"
> > PMLA Vol. 104 No. 3. p.306-316 (1989)
> >
> > Rosemarie Scullion "Foucault the Orientalist"
> > South Central Review Vol. 12 No. 2. p.16-40 (1995)
> >
> > I believe the Schaub article was discussed here as well.
> > best,
> >
> > seda mimaroglu.
> >
> >
> > On Nov 8, 2007 12:39 AM, Mehmet Kentel <mehmet.kentel@xxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> Working on Edward Said's Orientalism for a while, I am wondering if
> >> Foucault had said anything about Said's work. The book, after all,
> >> was
> >> published in 1978 and it got immediate response both from academic
> >> circles and popular media. Being a work deeply based on Foucault's
> >> analysis of discourse, I guess Orientalism must have had taken
> >> attention of Foucault too in a six-years time. A brief search,
> >> though,
> >> didn't come up with anything. Do you know any article or interview
> >> where Foucault talks about Said?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Mehmet Kentel
> >>
> >> Boğaziçi University
> >> Department of Political Science & International Relations
> >> Department of History
> >> Undergrad.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Foucault-L mailing list
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list