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A Brief Statement about Michel Foucault

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Emerges through communication. Is fluid and evolving. Involves a group with something in common. Influences and is ... Michel Foucault's Rhetorical Theory. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: A Brief Statement about Michel Foucault


1
A Brief Statement about Michel Foucault
  • Greg Kerkvliet
  • English 631

Place photo here
2
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

3
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)

4
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).

5
(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).

6
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)

7
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).

8
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).

9
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?

10
Finally, a Squirrel Eating a Piece of Pizza
11
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.

12
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?

13
Forum Posts
  • Rhetorical Theory Forum
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