Foucault the author

As I was reading Foucault's analysis of the concept of an author, I couldn't help but think of Barthes's essay on The Death of the Author, which states many of the same ideas about the disappearance of the author in post modern critique. Foucault's essay, however, seems much more self-aware to me in regards to its existence as a text with an author. In addition to the obvious presence of a second ego (of Foucault, through his use of the pronoun I throughout the text), Foucault seems to be requesting, from the reader, some sort of departure from the springboard he has laid down in the theory of the author-function in which he differentiates between the "initiators of discursive practices" and the "founders of sciences". In the final pages of the essay, Foucault seems to be claiming some of his ideas as coming from a sort of "initiator of discursive practices" by posing many questions that undoubtedly require further analysis of the ideas posited in the essay. To me, however, his text seems like an interesting hybrid of the initiators of which he speaks (Saussure, Freud, etc). Throughout the essay, Foucault's ideas rest pretty heavily on a foundation laid down by other authors. Does this still allow him to be an initiator of discursive practice? Or does one's ideas have to be completely original to be considered worthy of such a well respected author-function? Does the text lose a sort of "aura" by losing the author? (In this way can it be connected to the effects of modern reproducibility on visual art according to Benjamin?)

Also I would like to speak a bit about identifying myths in our society today. Barthes stated some very interesting examples, but I would like to find some that relate to us more intimately as a group and break them apart into their various components.

Also, it might be worth talking about what exactly constitutes a "work" according to Foucault. Barthes once wrote about the difference between a work and a text. Is anyone familiar with this? If so, how does it pertain to Foucault's analysis of the disappearance of the author?

WEEK 3: BARTHES AND FOUCAULT...start posting!

Welcome to the MCM 0100 blog!

Hi everyone,

This is an informal space where we will want to raise questions about the theory and media texts we are dealing with in this course. We are going to be very flexible about the format of the response: it can be a comment on a passage in a text, a critique of a couple of scenes in a film, or even connections between the theory and media texts assigned for the week. In other words, the post can be anything that is interesting or provocative to you from the assigned reading/viewing. Let's respond to each other's posts (but continue to be friendly when we agree to disagree) and use this space to make our sections productive.

Once again, my apologies for missing section for the next two weeks. But I am sure you will have a great time with Maggie.

Let's start thinking about what Barthes calls the "myth" and Foucault calls the "author function" and try to post our responses by (Thursday) midnight so that we have about twelve hours to go through and/or reply to each other's posts.

All best,
Ani