A Brief Statement about Michel Foucault

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A Brief Statement about Michel Foucault

• Greg Kerkvliet
• English 631

Place photo here
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Reading Review Discourse as Dictat(or/ed)

• Foucault draws from background to discuss changes
  in field of psychopathology in order to establish
  it as a discursive field and define discourse
• A discourse
• Emerges through communication
• Is fluid and evolving
• Involves a group with something in common
• Influences and is influenced by the communication
  in the discursive field

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Reading Review Origins of the Statement

• Who, among the totality of speaking individuals,
  is accorded the right to use this sort of
  language?
• Where is this language considered legitimate, and
  what sources make it legitimate?
• What are the various roles that the subject
  plays in constructing these statements? (BH
  1442-3)

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Reading Review What is this Statement thing?

• Has a specific relation that concerns itself
  and not its cause, or its elements (BH 1450).
• It possesses a particular relation with a
  subject.
• It cannot operate without the existence of an
  associated domain (BH 1452).
• It must have a material existence (BH 1457).

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(long, confusing, possibly contradictory)Quote
about Statement in a Nutshell

• Thus the statement circulates, is used,
  disappears, allows or prevents the realization of
  a desire, serves or resists various interests,
  participates in challenge and struggle, and
  becomes a theme of appropriation or rivalry (BH
  1460).

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Foucaults Shifting Notions on Power

• Early Works (Including Archaeology of Knowledge)
  negative and repressive
• Later Works productively dispersed through
  institutions and disciplines (Herzberg 81 the
  following were identified by him in the endnotes
  of his essay)
• Discipline and Punish knowledge comes before and
  is consubstantial with power (27)
• The History of Sexuality how do discourse and
  power relations support each other? (97)

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Foucaults Theories and Rhetoric

• Although his background was more philosophical
  and medical, Foucaults ideas on the statement
  and power and the relations between the two seem
  to be in line with current rhetorical issues.
• Foucaults theory of discourse states in
  compelling terms that rhetoric is bound up with
  power and social action, by showing the ways that
  seemingly diverse discourses come together in
  formations that affect social practices and
  social controls (Herzberg 77).

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Connecting the Statement to Power

• The primary way that the statement can be
  connected to his ideas about power revolves
  around the impact of the statement, which relates
  to which voices are authoritative enough to make
  impacting statements
• Foucault traces the routes of power through the
  interstices of statements and the fields of their
  support to their relations of appropriation and
  use (Herzberg 77).

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Activity Creating Context for Statements

• One of Foucaults primary points in the section
  we read seems to be that statements are
  classified that way because they are intended to
  make an impact. With another person, come up
  with a detailed (and possibly creative) situation
  where one of these would be considered a
  statement
• Remember what I told you or Colorless green
  ideas sleep furiously
• Some things to possibly consider when creating
  this situation are
• Who is saying it?
• Who are they saying it to?
• Why/When/Where are they saying it?
• What type of discourse influences/is influenced
  by the statement?

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Finally, a Squirrel Eating a Piece of Pizza
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Work Cited

• Herzberg, Bruce. Michel Foucaults Rhetorical
  Theory. Contending with Words Composition and
  Rhetoric in a Postmodern Age. Ed. Patricia
  Harkin and John Schilb. New York MLA, 1992.

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Discussion Questions

• What in Foucault reaffirms or complicates your
  notion of rhetoric?
• Foucault placed a lot of guidelines on what
  should be considered a statement. How do these
  guidelines make his idea of a statement
  rhetorical?
• How is his description of a statement similar to
  and/or distinct from one of the other things he
  mentions (speech act, sentence, proposition)?
• Why did Foucault use the example of historical
  perceptions of mental illness (psychopathology)
  to set up his discussion on statements? Why
  does/nt it help to understand his concept of the
  statement?

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Forum Posts

• Rhetorical Theory Forum