We present this discussion of (and with) Foucault’s ideas and their articulation in our History of Assemblages Model in a nonlinear fashion that tracks through the ideas from which it draws in without a defined order of progression with the hope that readers will draw dynamisms (epistemic mechanisms) from it that suit their own research interests. As it is a discussion, a conversation, there is no boundary set to curtail the sorts of ideas and topics that we embark upon, nor a set limit to how deep we will delve into a given topic; we are talking with Dr. Foucault, not analyzing him, summarizing him or simply extracting from his work, we are conversing with it as we would an old friend (or with our selves)… If you are wondering why we are only speaking with Dr. Foucault (and not the many, and often extremely flawed, strands of discourse on his work), or are perturbed by the lack of explanation in some of the discussion points, we refer you to the words of Gandalf in discussion with Aragorn, and the wisdom of Tolkien: “‘In one thing you have not changed, my dear friend,’ said Aragorn: ‘you… speak in riddles.’ ‘What? In riddles?’ said Gandalf. ‘No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.’” This brings us to issues of disciplinary techniques in academia that must be addressed before we embark on this theoretical project. The techniques we must address include: the assumed need to interact with the existing literature on a topic; the assumed need for word counts; the assumed need for thesis and hypothesis. As this is not the focus of our project and simply a necessary step in creating space for our discussion in this paper, we will not beleaguer the point. In the simplest terms, such practices constrain creativity and mobility in writing and thinking. As the goal of this theoretical, methodological project is to move creatively through the ideas of Dr. Foucault to provide readers with new ideas with which to transform their ontology and thus shed new light on their experiences and objects of research and to develop a dynamic means for forming knowledge of the relationship between ontology and norms of thought, behavior, being and power relations in society, both in a mobile and creative fashion, such constraints defeat the purpose of the project. As such, we throw them to the wind and thus prevent synthesis of “hierarchal observation” and “normalizing judgments” in “examination” outlined by Dr. Foucault in his Discipline and Punish from being used to constrain this discussion of Dr. Foucault’s ideas (disciplining a discussion of Foucault with the disciplinary practices outlined and critiqued in his work would be more than a little bit absurd and ironic)… No doubt the ‘ranking’ of the authors of this paper will be negatively affected by such an approach, and it is likely that we will meet with attempts at corrective forms of punishment (or capital punishment in the academic context, dismissal and exclusion) for breaching the norms defined by these techniques of power, but such a result will only work to demonstrate the validity of the papers critique. And, it doesnt matter anyway; the results for the ranking of the authors and their inclusion in and advancement through academia is irrelevant to the project, as its goal is to problematize oppressive regimes of ontology and to provide transformative ideas to readers which can blossom in the space created by this problematization.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 21:58:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015