

Class 21: Power and Archaeology: Michel Foucault
26 snips Feb 7, 2024
Dive into the intricate world of Michel Foucault’s theories, where power weaves through our understanding of modernity and post-modernity. Explore the tensions between language and reality, and how post-modernism challenges stable truths. Discover Foucault's critique of individualism and the influence on historical narratives. Delve into the societal impact of the AIDS epidemic on public discourse. Finally, examine the fluid connections between power, sexuality, and knowledge, ultimately questioning fixed truths and identities.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Meaning Is Produced By Structure
- Structuralism shifted meaning from intrinsic to relational by showing signifiers produce reality within structures.
- This undermined the sovereign subject and prioritized language as constitutive of experience.
Subjectivity Loses Its Sovereignty
- Foucault rejects the sovereignty of the Cartesian subject and the transcendental ego.
- He relocates agency into language and discourse rather than an autonomous 'I.'
The Discourse Dollar Joke
- Marci Shore recounts a grad-school joke about charging a dollar each time someone said "discourse."
- She uses the peanut-shell bar image to make the word memorable.