{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2036",
    "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": 2036,
    "subject": "the author-function",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-12-17T00:52:17+00:00",
    "last": "1999-12-17T00:52:17+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0636@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jeremy Crampton",
        "address": "jcrampto at osf1.gmu.edu"
      },
      "date": "1999-12-17T00:52:17+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) the author-function",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Jonathan said:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "terms 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)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Then you must like that sequence where Ultan is describing his first years\nas Master of the library, and his memory of sitting in a window seat on the\n49th floor--above, where was it Cyby--oh yes the upholsterer's garden, and\nthat he hadn't been taking in what the book was saying, but was regarding\nit as an object."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It 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. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This seems right and goes beyond what Jim was saying I think (the dom-sub\nthing) and that we choose to be subs, in that for F. there is this\n_predisursive_ level of determinations of discourse (and remember that\ndiscourse is that set of things spoken and written, that is, knowledge, not\nbooks per se). What might interest us is how certain discourses are\nexcluded on the one hand, and on the other, how they might be transgressed\n(another of his early essays). \n\nInterlude:\nWhile I'm looking at Jim, I have to disagree with this wretched label\n\"postmodernity\" again and always, I think certainly Fouc. would have a\nproblem with that label, as do I. According to Perry Anderson (the\nThunderbirds guy, no not really) the first idea of a postmodernism arose in\nthe 1930s in Hispanic America (Federico de Onis; Borges was an\n\"ultramodernismo\"), and has had many incarnations since then, none of which\nhave ever circulated around F. I can handle poststructuralist since that's\nat least historically accurate. (Bit tetchy about this as just came from\nweekend meeting in downtown DC where all sorts of critical theory was\ntarred and dismissed as bugaboo pomo.)\n\nAnyway, in support of Jonathan's point, I see that F. says elsewhere:\n\n\"Of course, it would be ridiculous to deny the existence of individuals who\nwrite, and invent. But I think that, for some time, at least, the\nindividual who sits down to write a text, at the edge of which lurks a\npossible oeuvre, resumes the functions of the author. What he writes and\ndoes not write, what he sketches out, even preliminary sketches for the\nwork, and what he drops as simply mundane remarks, all this interplay of\ndifferences is prescribed by the author-function.\" _Discourse on language_\n(1970).\n\nSo what F. challenges is not the author as individual who writes, but\nauthor as unified idea. We should be looking at the system of dispersion of\ndiscourse, its discontinuities, how it ebbs and flows together. You already\nprovided a good summary of the author-function (must cut and paste into my\nown notes!)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Would 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": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well the only thing I can think of is how certain texts might be seen to be\nvalorised by receiving expensive bindings and illustration plates. On the\nother hand, there is a more underground literature (not, after F., the\nVictorian again!) which might \"mask\" its interior (anyone read the Sixteen\nPleasures?). This was Clute's idea in that Salon piece I guess. You have to\nknow the \"code\" to access the material, and there is a certain jargon,\nlook, illustration type, etc that signals to the cognoscenti. So there is a\n\"discourse\" to the appearance of the book which can exclude or filter\naccess. Well, maybe not! You'll have to tell us more about your work...\n\nbest,\n__\nJeremy W. Crampton\t\t         http://geog.gmu.edu    jcrampto at gmu.edu\nDept. of Geography & Earth Science\n[MS 1E2]\t\t\t\t’Tis true; there’s magic in the web of it.\nGeorge Mason University\t\t\t\t\t--Othello (III.iv.69)\nFairfax, Va 22030"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}