{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2034",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2034,
    "subject": "readerly/writerly/Foucault",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-12-16T10:20:05+00:00",
    "last": "1999-12-16T10:20:05+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0632@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jonathan Laidlow",
        "address": "laidlojm at hhs.bham.ac.uk"
      },
      "date": "1999-12-16T10:20:05+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) readerly/writerly/Foucault",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "More boring stuff on literary theory I'm afraid folks. If we go on much \nlonger we'll take it to email. Sorry in advance!"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I prefer Foucault's term \"discourse\" which is somewhat above the level of\nthe statement, though you have to plough through _Archaeology of knowledge_\nto work this out (one of his last structuralist books thank goodness).\nDiscourse is what is formed by the archive, the set of rules which\ndetermine what can be said, remembered, appropriated, re-used or forgotten.\nAnyway, the point is that there is authority in discourse, it frames simply\nwhat can be said or how it is said. His examples are madness, criminality,\nand sexuality."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I dunno. I always found that unless I was doing linguistics \n(*shudder*) 'discourse' became one of those nebulous mis-used \nterms that could actually refer to just about anything. If we stick with \nreferring to material objects like books then we can keep ourselves \ngrounded in actual discussion of the work at hand. Of course it \nhelps if your research (like mine) actually concentrates on the \ndiffering authorities presented by physical features in books by \nLaurence Sterne (black pages, footnotes, marbling etc)\nYou also end up making sweeping generalisations about \n'discourse' which may well be true, but also leave you open to \nfurther deconstruction by post-structuralists keen to reveal that there \nis some basic contradiction in your argument that unravels you and \n(probably) erases you from existence...."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "structuralist theory was always the weakest point. What intrigues \nme is the scope for questioning concepts of authorship and \nauthority which are too often taken for granted. That doesn't mean \nwe must erase their existence, merely understand the way we read \nthe 'new Gene Wolfe novel' in different ways to the 'new Jeffery \nArcher novel', and the way the presence of the author has a bearing \non our reading of their narrators."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "This seems useful."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I hope so. I'm not a Foucault expert at all, but I have done extensive \nresearch on theories of authorship (most of it now sadly replaced in \nmy mind by useless trivia I'm sure) and I think one of the dangers of \nusing big name critical theory is that you end up either taking it at \nface value or dismissing it wholesale. Perhaps its that I'm de-\nradicalising it, or missing the point somewhat, but we have to find \nwhere such theories actually become useful and intersect with 'real-\nworld' (for want of a better world) applications, whether it be the \nstudy of literary texts or, indeed, post-modern geography.\n\nWhat is it Foucault says about the 'author function' [checks draft of \nthesis on hard disc - inserts section from an early draft which keeps \nthings simple:]\n\nFoucault defines the ‘author’ as a ‘limiting practice’, ‘the regulator \nof the fictive’.Rather than the originator of the significations of a text, \n Foucault suggests that the ‘author’ is a function of the text, \n\n‘by which one impedes the free circulation, the free manipulation, \nthe free composition, decomposition, and recomposition of fiction’. \n\nIn the  repetition of the word ‘free’ we can perhaps begin to see that \n Foucault is aspiring towards a new form of literary discourse which \nallows signification more liberty, more plurality. Yet Foucault also \nrecognises that all texts have features which limit the free play of \nsignifications. Nevertheless, this desire for pluralism reduces the \nutility of the concept for our own purposes, for it taints the idea of \nthe ‘author function’ with a utopian desire for the excision of the \nauthor from critical work. \n\nIt appears unlikely that Foucault was, in the above passage, calling \nfor a ‘death’ of the author, when so much of his work is concerned \nwith the construction of authors and authority. Rather, he appears to \nbe establishing that alongside the originating (and elusive) figure of \nthe author, there is a feature of texts which is also the author: the \nauthor function. \n \nWhat this formulation of the ‘author function’ does for literary studies \nis that it historicises the very notion of authorship and recognises \nthat the term ‘author’ has changed its meaning at various points \nthrough history. The ‘author’ is merely another feature of the text, \nrather than the privileged originator of all its meanings. The actual \nfunction that it performs he describes as follows:\n\n\"The author’s name serves to characterize a certain mode of being \nof discourse: the fact that the discourse has an author’s name, that \none can say ‘this was written by so-and-so’ or ‘so-and-so is its \nauthor,’ shows that this discourse is not ordinary everyday speech \nthat merely comes and goes, not something that is immediately \nconsumable. On the contrary, it is a speech that must be received \nin a certain mode and that, in a given culture, must receive a certain \nstatus.\"\n\n(quotes taken from F's essay, 'What is an Author?, reproduced in \nvarious places - most handily in the 'Foucault Reader' published by \nPenguin in the UK,)\n\nWould appreciate any suggestions on the above, as its part of my \nwork that, er, *doesn't* work correctly. Quite hard to squeeze it into \nmy arguments that the materiality of the physical book is important."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Thanks again Jonathan. If you're in Chester next week I'll buy you a pint!\nI'll be home for the holidays."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Chester UK? Or Chester USA? Both are a bit far from the wet and \nwindy west midlands!\n\nJonathan\nVisit Ultan's Library - A Gene Wolfe web resource\nhttp://members.tripod.co.uk/laidlow/index.htm\nJonathan Laidlow\nUniversity of Birmingham, UK"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}