Your opinion about Foucault?
>>1089500
I'm still forming my opinion of him and his material. I'll get back to you in about 10 years.
his ideas were adopted into collegiate debate and the competition is now beyond repair, fucking structuralists
>>1089500
He looks like Uncle Fester
>>1089526
Go read EP Thompson versus Perry Anderson
>>1089526
And nobody in HS or Collegiate debate has any idea what they are talking about. At best they confuse the bare life Agamben concepts with Foucault at worst they pronounce it "Foh-calt"
>>1089500
I don't know, but someone explain to me what he means about power? And fountains of power? Or some shit like that.
What is he talking about?
>>1089562
Power is in creating norms, and power has an inseparable relation to knowledge as discourse exerts power by determining what is and isn't truth
>>1089562
For Foucault, all social agents possess power, a kind of idealist "forces and relations of production." These powers circulate, but well up at fountains of power.
You believe the police to be powerful? Athenians would have laughed at it and then beaten them to death.
>>1089584
Except that norms in Foucault are shattered categories, not unitary ones. Certainly not transhistorical ones.
>>1089587
I don't understand his belief in discursive formations or rather the transition between them. He says there is always a discursive formation and they follow one after the other but succeeding formations have no relation to their predecessors? There's no gradual changes or reactions
>>1089599
Each and every discursive formation is historically unique, there is no "progress" between them, only change. A discursive formation which allows for change in its constituent discourse is "open," but isn't "changed," by that transformation. Consider how DSM III medicalised homosexuality whereas DSM IV considers homosexuality to be a life choice. Both are within a liberal scientific discursive power structure. In one moment a computer scientist is executed by medical science, in another he is praised, but the discursive structure remains fixed. Instead, the difference (differance ha ha) between discursive structures is a historical rupture between ways of knowing and being that are incommensurable (cf: Kuhn on the structure of scientific revolutions and the radical change in a paradygm shift).
>>1089585
>>1089584
Got it. Thank you for the assists anons.
Cheers
>>1089606
This is a really cool example I hadn't thought of.
>>1089585
>>You believe the police to be powerful? Athenians would have laughed at it and then beaten them to death.
Well the thing is we're not athenians and in this country anyway the police are the strong arms of the state security apparatus. So they are actually rather powerful, it's not a matter of belief.
>>1089635
Norms aren't personal beliefs where an individual can unimagine the police. Consider the failure of the Bow Street Runners as police in the face of the London Mobility's disbelief.
>>1089606
>liberal scientific discursive power
Interesting thinker. His acolytes are unbearable.
>>1089520
This desu.
> Be Focault
> Submit your work to the University of Stockholm
> Get shit for faulty methodology
> Submit your work in Paris instead
> Hailed as one of the centuries greatest thinkers by French intellectuals
How did this happen?
>>1089737
I'm explaining Foucault, not putting my own position matey.
>>1089782
Historiography in the history of ideas is more developed in Stockholm.
>>1089585
>Athenians would have laughed at it and then beaten them to death.
Did they though ? Their police was mainly scythians mercenary and those weren't exactly super-friendly people. Not to say the average athenian citizen was a lazy bastard that couldn't beat people up, but did they do it ?
And as said, we aren't athenians from two millenias and a half and the police ain't the same now, so that's a pretty idiotic and shitty example.
>>1089792
>the average athenian citizen was a lazy bastard that couldn't beat people up
Given your erudition in the documentary record of the past, I think we can consider your comprehension to be similar.
>>1089798
Considering that you cut up the first part of the sentence I don't know what to think of this.
But since the "average athenian citizen" would most certainly have served in the army, as it was their duty, I'd expect them to have been a bit capable in beating people up.
>>1089805
Remember what happened when the hermes were emasculated?
sexiest + smartest mafukn orange head in 20kCentury
>>1089790
Whats wrong with his position?
>>1089849
its not this position
>>1089853
Well, whats wrong with 'liberal scientific discursive power'?
>>1089849
>Whats wrong with his position?
Incessant idealism.
>>1089500
> in class
> professor connects the topic of the lecture to Foucault pretty cleverly
> even pronounces his name correctly
> except:
> "Michael Foucault"
> I whisper the correct pronunciation of "Michel" under my breath
> the people around me don't seem to notice, though I suspect the qt sitting in front of me can feel my breath against her hair, as we are sitting rather close in this small and clustered London lecture theatre
> He does it again: Michael Foucault
> And I too: "Michel."
> This time my voice can definitely be heard by the people around me, the female in front of me turns around, she probably felt the spit from my now foaming mouth spatter on her head
> a third time: MichAEL Foucault
> This time I simply stand up and walk out, pushing legs and apologising loudly to the people I have to brush past, as the lecture pauses because of the commotion I'm causing
> Outside the lecture I realise that language is a social construct, that the rigid interpretation of the pronunciation of Foucault's name is something that was transmitted to me through the broader discourse of French grammatical orthodoxy and that it has succeeded in indoctrinating me
> I go home and shave my head anyway
>>1089887
Oh you mean Mike Fuck all
>>1089500
>hey did you know that XY is not a timeless thing but merely a 19th century social construct?
>uh, no sorry, I won't make an effort to falsify my claim with historical research, ain't got no time for that lmao just let me write a 700 page book on the new truth I discovered
>>1089864
not gay enough
>>1089500
Alright, I know jack shit about Foucault but recently I got into an online discussion wether the adjective "exotic" is politically correct to use or not. My position was that is simply a good way to describe something being strange and yet beautiful whereas the person I was talking to held the position that the word itself enables racist, imperialist discourse, as it was used during the colonial times to descrive foreign peoples and their cultures. We argued for a while until the other person said:
Well, you should go educate yourself and read Foucault.
So my question is: Do Foucault's writings offer any support for the notion that the historical use of a word should determine it's meaning even if it existed well before the negative context it was used in?
>>1089969
Read Said's Orientalism first.
>the word itself enables discourse
Sonic says: ethical consumption is impossible in capitalism. Your interlocutor hadn't read their Lukacs.
>>1089980
Thanks. Added Orientalism to my list of stuff to read.
>>1089980
>>1090013
Apparently, Saïd liked Foucault and Sartre's writings while they were kinda oblivious of him.
When they finally all met (plus de Beauvoir), the French thought quite highly of Saïd, but hearing them talk face to face, he found himself thinking that those three thinkers were way less interesting than he previously thought, finding them somehow too abstract and idealistic, too much in phase with a bourgeois intellectual posture, especially on the Palestine / Israël conflict for instance.
Kind of like the Hitler / Mussolini meeting effect.
>>1089500
Nosferatu if my favorite movie.
>>1090043
Let me put it this way: Lukacs is too culturalist for my tastes. Althusser puts way too much emphasis on ideology. Thus, while I don't have a particular problem with Said, I've never had occasion to read him or use him.
>>1090052
i bet yr fav word is praxis you faggot
>>1089782
French wallow in obscurantism. It's a common joke that to impress french intellectuals, you have to make your work partly incomprehensible, so they think of it as profound.
>>1090107
ayo hol up we got a analytic on our hands
more l8r mayb
Only thing i know about him is his opinion on madness and i agree with that
>>1090111
It is true independent of philosophy, though, so not intended as a dig at... The structure of the french language lends itself to superfluous verbosity. Ask anyone who isn't native french speaking and has had to deal with french legal writing, for instance.
>>1090111
Foucault himself didn't like obscurantism. He was forced to write in it because that's what's "fashionable".
>>1090135
He's pretty fucking direct on the point of praxis in his debate with Chomsky. As direct as you can be without directly accusing Chomsky of being a sopping bourgeois stooge.
>>1090128
Wich is?
>>1089782
>University of Stockholm
University of Uppsala, not the University of Stockholm.
Uppsala University does not fuck around, it's been around since 1477 and haven't got time to spent on modernist ramblings. Faulty methodology, speculative generalizations? Fuck off Foucault
/Uppsala student
>>1090267
I like this college, seems like the one I'm going to.
>>1090444
University, not college.
>>1090532
Hm, this is the one I'm going to.
Accepts no state or federal money, accepts nor collects any racial data, the first college in America drafted on a complete non-discrimination clause, and an almost impervious integrity
>>1090540
>does not collect*
>>1090540
You sound like a special fucking snowflake, sweetheart.
>>1090547
I am interested in your university, and tried to probe conversation about it and some of its history by offering mine.
But okay, you could just sperged out instead
>>1090547
Your university is of no consequence to the Humanities, disciplinarity, or the history of the ideas of Foucault's history of ideas. Uppsala, and its academic standards, is.
>>1090557
The Anon who replied to you isn't the same one who's from Uppsala (because that's me).
>>1090444
>>1090540
But I'm confused. You're coming to Uppsala as an exchange student?
I could give you advice if you have any questions about coming here. Uppsala is a lovely place.
>>1090680
No, I'm very interested and my college offers many opportunities to study abroad.
>>1090757
Most exchange students live in Flogsta, which is pretty run-down but fun. It's thousands of students all living in the same place, party 24/7, etc. Quick bus ride/bicycle ride to the inner city.
Known for the Flogsta roar (swe: Flogstavrålet). Google it.
>Sweden
>religion
No.
Best courses? Well, what are you looking to major in?
No, you don't
Muzzles?
>>1090791
>No religious services
So no church on Sundays or anything?
:(
>major
Politics and economics double major, history minor.
>muzzles?
Takbir, inshalla my brother
Also, what about cost?
>>1089526
>*post structuralists
Seeing as you are probably a structuralist yourself you shouldn't mess that distinction up
>>1090757
Choosing to study a masters in humanities at Uppsala is one of the biggest mistakes in my life. The courses are mostly open debates where everyone cay say anything and even if it's patently wrong and dumb, it's still "ok". The examinations are usually throughout the semester, writing around 3000k word essays per week. The humanities don't have a lot of money so there aren't many lectures, the syllabus suffers because of that.
The housing situation is terrible; I guess exchange students are granted moldy housing, which is still very expensive. If you're not an exchange student apply for a queue at least a year in advance, otherwise you will have to live in a hostel (like I did for a month), a church, a tent.
There is not much to do in the town itself once you get tired of "cheap" beer and burgers in subsidized "nations".
You don't have to learn Swedish. And what are muzzles?
>>1090812
There are services on Sundays in each församling (part of the city).
>>1090853
>what are muzzies
KEBAB
>your post
This sound awful.
I am now reconsidering
>>1089500
He died young but not young enough
>>1090865
>KEBAB
not many of them on campus, but everywhere else in town yep. Tons of Somalis and Afghans. And gypsies in front of every shop begging for money.
To me this place is really dour, can't wait to finish and go back to my slavshit country.
>>1090089
Why are we supposed to take this charlatan seriously?
>>1090872
Thanks for warning me.
>>1090902
Ok, let's start with courses. They are definitely better thought out, the examinations are way stricter (paper, written exam, oral exam). We have to read primary texts not just some wankers writing about the texts. The lectures are not based on discussions and we have next to zero group work, which is obviously a big thing in Sweden and I loathe it. I know not everyone is against that kind of work, but it's simply not productive in humanities (I also had a course at Ekonomikum, which also promoted group work, SLU as well). The good thing in Uppsala are the libraries, which are well-stacked and kind to students.
Next: housing. Everyone gets subsidized student housing because it wasn't privatized as it was in Sweden and the state actually invests in building new student dorms. And since they are state-owned and subsidized they are of course cheap (for example, a corridor room costs around 70€ per month), here I pay 5k sek and I'm told that's cheap.
Cultural and social life: "in my slav country" we actually have a respectable theater that doesn't only do modern transfriendly remakes of classics. The club scene is alive, whereas here the big club event of the year in Uppsala is a Katushka in Katalin playing turbofolk pseudo-slavic/gypsy pastiche. The galleries here are atrocious, the museums outdated (evolutionary museum? Bad taxidermy and specimens in evaporated formaldehyde).
>>1089500
Discipline and Punish is a great book, changed my way of thinking profoundly. His other histories are also good, the birth of the clinic etc.
His theoretical-methodological work, Archaeology of knowledge, is garbage and he should be punished for writing it.
>>1089500
He can die of AIDS for all I care.
>>1089907
Mi-ča-el Fow-ook-owlt
