Literature and History (3): Michel Foucault:

1
Literature and History (3)Michel Foucault

• His Views on History
• New Historicism

2
Q A

• (Discourse ? Power and Subjectivity)
• What do you know about Foucault so far?
• (Discourse ? history)
• What does it mean to say that Foucault
  historicize discourse and textualize history
  (textbook 116)
• Why is history not linear for Foucault?

3
Foucault traditional historicism vs. Archaelogy

• Traditional Historicism the past as a unified
  entity, with coherent development and organized
  by fixed categories such as author, spirit,
  period and nation.
• History as Archive intersections of multiple
  discourses, with gaps and discontinuity, like
  book stacks in a library. ? archeology a
  painstaking rediscovery of struggles

4
Foucault historicize discourse

• Every sentiment is in a certain discourse, and
  thus historically conditioned. Textbook 117
• effective history
• knowledge as perspective, with slant and
  limitations
• working without constants
• Working not to discover ourselves, but to
  introduce discontinuity in histories as well as
  in us.

5
Thick Description

• To sort out the structures discourses of
  signification
• Cultures, people and texts, all as ensemble of
  texts. (121)

6
Context as Con-texts

• Traditional view

World
Work symbols, Characters, Allegory, etc.
7
Context as Con-texts
Episteme

• N-H view

A Literary Text A Literary Text A Literary Text