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Q) Position of discourse in Post Structuralism from your reading of Foucault. Foucault was not a social theorist. He did not concern to create a social theory that would "explain" or "interpret" the history of the West in terms of "power." He was not a historian of ideas. He presented himself as an "archaeologist," who must be content with describing the invisible cultural formations that, he believed, produced the visible social and literary evidence he examined. He sought the conditions of possibility of discourse, the rules which governed the putting together of statements, and the ruptures in formations where novelty could appear. He wrote: "Archaeology tries to define not the thoughts, representations, images, themes, preoccupations that are concealed or revealed in discourses; but those discourses themselves, those discourses as practices obeying certain rules." (Horus Publications, 1998) The main influences on Foucault's thought were German philosophers Frederick Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. Nietzsche maintained that human behavior is motivated by a will to power and that traditional value had lost its power over society. The terms genealogy, discourse, essentialism, power/knowledge, repressive, hypothesis, subject, discipline, panopticon have remarkable significance in Foucault's terminology. However in most of his work a special emphasize will be given to these two terms: Discourse and Power. "Discourse in Foucault's vocabulary is an authoritative way of describing. Discourses are propagated by specific institutions and divide up the world in specific ways. For example, we can talk of medical, legal, and psychological discourses. Literary criticism is also a discourse, as is the terminology associated with grading."  Like the structuralism of de Saussure, Mi chel Foucault was concerned with, the principles by which elements can be organized together to produce coherent and meaningful patterns. However, whereas de Saussure would seek the value of such patterns with respect to an idealized language system, Foucault always seeks to describe concrete relationships that can be described between concrete items. Foucault describes arrangements of this kind as “discursive formations”. Simply put, a discursive formation refers to the ways in which a collection of texts are organized with respect to each other. To draw on Foucault’s words, “whenever, between objects,types of statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order. . .), we will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation” .

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Q) Position of discourse in Post Structuralism from your reading of Foucault.

Foucault was not a social theorist. He did not concern to create a social theory that would

"explain" or "interpret" the history of the West in terms of "power." He was not a historian of 

ideas. He presented himself as an "archaeologist," who must be content with describing the

invisible cultural formations that, he believed, produced the visible social and literary evidence

he examined. He sought the conditions of possibility of discourse, the rules which governed the

putting together of statements, and the ruptures in formations where novelty could appear. He

wrote: "Archaeology tries to define not the thoughts, representations, images, themes,

preoccupations that are concealed or revealed in discourses; but those discourses themselves,

those discourses as practices obeying certain rules." (Horus Publications, 1998) The main

influences on Foucault's thought were German philosophers Frederick Nietzsche and Martin

Heidegger. Nietzsche maintained that human behavior is motivated by a will to power and that

traditional value had lost its power over society. The terms genealogy, discourse, essentialism,

power/knowledge, repressive, hypothesis, subject, discipline, panopticon have remarkable

significance in Foucault's terminology. However in most of his work a special emphasize will be

given to these two terms: Discourse and Power. "Discourse in Foucault's vocabulary is an

authoritative way of describing. Discourses are propagated by specific institutions and divide up

the world in specific ways. For example, we can talk of medical, legal, and psychological

discourses. Literary criticism is also a discourse, as is the terminology associated with grading."  

Like the structuralism of de Saussure, Michel Foucault was concerned with, the

principles by which elements can be organized together to produce coherent and

meaningful patterns. However, whereas de Saussure would seek the value of such

patterns with respect to an idealized language system, Foucault always seeks to

describe concrete relationships that can be described between concrete items. Foucault

describes arrangements of this kind as “discursive formations”. Simply put, a discursiveformation refers to the ways in which a collection of texts are organized with respect to

each other. To draw on Foucault’s words, “whenever, between objects,types of 

statement, concepts, or thematic choices, one can define a regularity (an order. . .), we

will say, for the sake of convenience, that we are dealing with a discursive formation” .

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For Foucault discursive formations are entities to be seen, touched, and experienced

because they are composed of material objects, such as books. It follows, then, that

because discursive formations are material, they have material effects.

 According to Foucault, we see that 'discourse' (a group of statements) is a way of 

representing the knowledge about a particular topic at a particular historical moment.

Discourse constructs the topic. It defines and produces the objects of our knowledge. It

also influences how ideas are put into practice and used to regulate the conduct of 

others. So the meaning is constructed through discourse, nothing has any meaning

outside of discourse. The main point here is the way discourse, representation,

knowledge and 'truth' are historicized by Foucault, in contrast to the ahistorical tendency

in semiotics. That is, things meant something and were 'true' only within a specific 

historical context . He thought that in each period, discourse produced forms of 

knowledge, objects, subjects and practices of knowledge which differed from period to

period, with no necessary continuity between them. For instance, there may always

have been what we now call homosexual forms of behaviour. But 'the homosexual' as a

specific kind of social subject which was produced, and could only make its appearance

within the moral, legal, medical and psychiatric discourses, practices and institutional

apparatuses of the late nineteenth century, with their particular theories of sexual

perversity. Knowledge about and practices around all these subjects were historically

and culturally specific.

The question of the application and effectiveness of power/knowledge was more

important, Foucault thought, than the question of its 'truth'. He thought that knowledge

linked to power, not only assumes the authority of 'the truth' but has the power to make 

itself true . All knowledge, once applied in the real world, has real effects , and in that

sense 'becomes true'. So there is no 'Truth' of knowledge in the absolute sense -- aTruth, whatever the period, setting, context, is a discursive formation sustaining a

regime of truth (not 'what is true' but 'what counts as true').

For Foucault, power does not function as a center but exercise through a net-like

organization. This suggests that we are all caught up in the circulation of power relation

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-- oppressors and oppressed. Power is also productive network which runs through the

whole social body because it induces pleasure, forms of knowledge, produces

discourse. For Foucault, the concept of power knowledge is thus a pragmatic

conceptualization. Foucault's approach to representation is that he concerned with the

production of knowledge and meaning through discourse. For him, the production of 

knowledge is always crossed with questions of power and the body, and this expands

the scope of what is involved in representation. For him, it is discourse, not the subject

which produces knowledge. Discourse is enmeshed with power, but it is not necessary

to find a 'subject' like the king, the ruling class, the state -- for power/knowledge to

operate. Of course Foucault was deeply critical of the traditional conception of the

subject (an individual, the core of the self, and the independent, authentic source of 

action and meaning). His most radical propositions is that the 'subject' is produced  

within discourse . That is, the subject cannot be outside discourse because it must be

subjected to discourse and also exists within the knowledge (which is produced by

discourse), the discursive formation of a particular period and culture. So the subject

can become the object through which power is relayed, and should be located in the

position from which the discourse can make sense of it. Anyhow, individuals may differ 

as to their social class, gendered, racial characteristics, they will not be able to take

meaning until they have identified with those positions which are constructed by the

discourse, subjected themselves to its rules, and hence become the subjects of its 

power/knowledge . Foucault suggests that there are epistemic breaks, that is, at certain

moments in a culture, there are discontinuous developments in discursive structures.