705: Barthes and Foucault
Roland Barthes
Barthes is an interesting character, especially in the readings presented because the writings cover a span of philosophical life. Of the four essays read, "Striptease," and "The Structuralist Activity" come earlier in Barthes' life, and it shows. Both of these essays work on development of cultural theories and placing various activities, such as the aforementioned erotic dance, but also expanding in to areas like painting, popular fiction, film, etc. "Striptease" talks about the power of the burlesque dancer in France to reconstruct the mystery of the female body, not by removing clothing, but by hiding the body in symbols. The objective, he claims, is not to lay bare the body, which in turn de-mystifies and vulgarizes the woman, but to make the woman a sorcerers, capable of shedding and re-constructing layers of signs to establish her as something other than human. "The Structuralist Activity" ties to that when Barthes discusses how culture can be read as a system of complex signs a la de Saussurean philosophy, but instead of relying on philosophers to find and reveal those signs, Barthes claims, it is better to look at artists and writers. Creative figures reiterate the structures of their time through their work and as a functioning part of Author-Reader-Text (which I will expand on momentarily), the creative figure is in a better position to be analyzed for cultural relevance. A painting from 1680 will tell more about the culture of the period than a theorist from either the same period, or the contemporary age looking back.
The second two essays, "The Death of the Author" and "From Work to Text" jump track a bit and shift from focusing on cultural theory and signification to talking about the place of a work in society. Rather than talking about how the structure of a work can be revealed and its cultural context, Barthes starts to talk about what a work means in relation to the external. Barthes talks about the "Author" from the standpoint of "authority," or the leading voice in a discussion of a text, and then makes the claim that the position of priviledge the Author has enjoyed is now dead. The importance of a text does not derive frm who wrote it, but from the relationship of the text to the Reader. To illustrate this, imagine a triangle, with "Author," "Text," and "Reader" placed at the three corners. Barthes focuses on the leg of "Text" and "Reader," giving it primary importance. "Work to Text" analysis just the "Text" corner, and draws certain differentiations between the concept of a "Work" and the concept of a "Text." "Work" in this case is almost exactly what Antoinin Artaud wrote about when he wrote "No More Masterpieces," in which Artaud calls for the destruction of the belief in a piece's inherent authority. Barthes eerily echoes this, claiming that as the Author is dead, and the only relationship remaining is between Reader and Work/Text, the piece itself should not have the authority that was once granted to the author. A piece is not great simply because it is called great; only the Reader/Viewer can decide the quality of a work, in relation to the self. "Text" then becomes the perferred term, which establishes the importance of process, over production, and allows the Reader to interpolate himself into the piece as part of it, rather than attempting to accept the piece on its own authority.
Michel Foucault
As one of the most influential theorists of the 20th century, reading Foucault is intimidating. Fortunately, Barthes provides an excellent roadmap to breaking in to this set of essays. The first essay, "What is an Author?" asks basically the same questions that Barthes addresses in "Death of the Author" but does it from a different standpoint. Instead of declaring the Author to be dead and examining the remaing connection between Text and Reader, Foucault challenges the definition of Author and then deconstructs the various historical ways in which Author is defined. Before, the idea of attributing non-scientific writing to a single person wasn't a vital concept. The idea of Author does not directly refer to a single person, but is more of a signifier of a set of styles and concepts that may or may not have actually been correctly attributed to a single creator. Foucault quotes Saint Jerome in identifying four ways that Author is conceived: 1. a level of quality/value of writing, 2. Doctrinaly and through theoretical coherence, 3. Stylistically through words and expressions, and 4. historically by biography or timeframe (ie something written 100 years after a given date of death probably does not belong to an older canon of texts). Keeping the Author-Reader-Text triangle in mind, Foucault focuses on the other two legs that Barthes does not: the relation of the Author to the Reader and how the Reader has constructed the Author; and the Author to the Text and how the Text has constructed the Author. Of course, the idea of copywright has drastically changed how the Author is conceived and placed a new importance on singular names belonging to singular texts, but this only enhances the fact that Author is a discourse, changed over the course of history.
"Las Meninas" is a fascinating text that deconstructs the gaze in the painting "Las Meninas" by Diego Rodriguez Velazquez from 1656. This is a very famous essay in which Foucault applies post-structuralist concepts to a painting and breaks down the discourse of the time. The painting is incredibly complex and difficult to describe without re-stating the entirity of Foucault's essay, but a few salient points emerge. One, in the paintng, which is of a painter creating what is presumably a portrait, the actual focus of the gaze is unknown, as the painter is looking straight forward at the viewer. The painter is essentially focused in return on the viewer. Not only that, but Velazquez himself becomes the view of his own work, as he presumably stood in the same spot as the spectator, and thus created a work that perfectly embodies the triangle of Author-Reader-Text. The other thing that is powerful about Foucault's essay itself is that, beyond idenitifying the Reader with the Author, is the way that his post-structuralist technique is actually applied to the discourse of a given period, and how that discourse is constructed. By analysing "Las Meninas," Foucault steps away from the standard idea of "Text" and applies his theories to a greater work of artistic culture, proving the versatility of his theories and his writings, which in turn prevents him from easily being categorized in terms of his philosophies.
The final text is an excerpt from "The History of Sexuality" in which Foucault traces the discourse on sexuality across history. Sexuality, he says, is a construct and a discourse, just as all things are, that stems from a relationship of power. He identifies four categories of sexual discourse: 1. the hysterization of women's bodies, 2. infantalization of child sexuality, 3. socialization of procreative behavior, and 4. institutionalizing perverse behavior. The core unit for dealing with this, the Insititutional State Apparatus if you will, is the family, but in modern times, the family is so over-burdened with the job of placing sexuality in proper discourse, it his collapsing under its own weight. Personally, the discovery of this essay comes at a very significant time, with October being Gay History month, National Coming Out Day on October 11th, and this year, a national movement to march on Washington, DC to demand action on LGBT rights. The fourth type of discourse relates immediately to homosexuality now, which as Foucault points out wasn't a discourse or type of isolated behavior until the mid 1800's, and even today, the LGBT community is a group of people who are told from the outside that they're different because of a single behavior. That single behavior has become the lynchpin of an entire global community that has banded together for the express purpose of combating the discourse surrounding institutionalized perversion. Is there an inherent quality that causes this behavior? All jokes about Cher and Madonna aside, there do seem to be common personality traits and tastes among gay men and women, sexual behavior notwithstanding. Returning to family as the basis for upholding sexual discourse, we find that those things that don't fit the "correct" patterns, like homosexuality, are removed from the family. So, gay men and women have been quick to create our own. It's an ironic statement that we call the LGBT community "the family," much like a big, gay Mafia. It only requires being kicked out of one family to realize exactly how constructed the ISA really is. I find myself correcting the community acronym even as I type (in the last five years, it has switched from GLBT to LGBT) and am surprised at how much the discourse within our own community has changed. Has Foucault revealed an even deeper, more frightening truth though? Once a discourse has been created, can it ever truly be removed? Will we ever move into a post-racial, post-genered, post-sexual society? To parrot Tony Kushner, can the forces of race, taste, and history ever really be overcome? Will they find their negations?
Barthes is an interesting character, especially in the readings presented because the writings cover a span of philosophical life. Of the four essays read, "Striptease," and "The Structuralist Activity" come earlier in Barthes' life, and it shows. Both of these essays work on development of cultural theories and placing various activities, such as the aforementioned erotic dance, but also expanding in to areas like painting, popular fiction, film, etc. "Striptease" talks about the power of the burlesque dancer in France to reconstruct the mystery of the female body, not by removing clothing, but by hiding the body in symbols. The objective, he claims, is not to lay bare the body, which in turn de-mystifies and vulgarizes the woman, but to make the woman a sorcerers, capable of shedding and re-constructing layers of signs to establish her as something other than human. "The Structuralist Activity" ties to that when Barthes discusses how culture can be read as a system of complex signs a la de Saussurean philosophy, but instead of relying on philosophers to find and reveal those signs, Barthes claims, it is better to look at artists and writers. Creative figures reiterate the structures of their time through their work and as a functioning part of Author-Reader-Text (which I will expand on momentarily), the creative figure is in a better position to be analyzed for cultural relevance. A painting from 1680 will tell more about the culture of the period than a theorist from either the same period, or the contemporary age looking back.
The second two essays, "The Death of the Author" and "From Work to Text" jump track a bit and shift from focusing on cultural theory and signification to talking about the place of a work in society. Rather than talking about how the structure of a work can be revealed and its cultural context, Barthes starts to talk about what a work means in relation to the external. Barthes talks about the "Author" from the standpoint of "authority," or the leading voice in a discussion of a text, and then makes the claim that the position of priviledge the Author has enjoyed is now dead. The importance of a text does not derive frm who wrote it, but from the relationship of the text to the Reader. To illustrate this, imagine a triangle, with "Author," "Text," and "Reader" placed at the three corners. Barthes focuses on the leg of "Text" and "Reader," giving it primary importance. "Work to Text" analysis just the "Text" corner, and draws certain differentiations between the concept of a "Work" and the concept of a "Text." "Work" in this case is almost exactly what Antoinin Artaud wrote about when he wrote "No More Masterpieces," in which Artaud calls for the destruction of the belief in a piece's inherent authority. Barthes eerily echoes this, claiming that as the Author is dead, and the only relationship remaining is between Reader and Work/Text, the piece itself should not have the authority that was once granted to the author. A piece is not great simply because it is called great; only the Reader/Viewer can decide the quality of a work, in relation to the self. "Text" then becomes the perferred term, which establishes the importance of process, over production, and allows the Reader to interpolate himself into the piece as part of it, rather than attempting to accept the piece on its own authority.
Michel Foucault
As one of the most influential theorists of the 20th century, reading Foucault is intimidating. Fortunately, Barthes provides an excellent roadmap to breaking in to this set of essays. The first essay, "What is an Author?" asks basically the same questions that Barthes addresses in "Death of the Author" but does it from a different standpoint. Instead of declaring the Author to be dead and examining the remaing connection between Text and Reader, Foucault challenges the definition of Author and then deconstructs the various historical ways in which Author is defined. Before, the idea of attributing non-scientific writing to a single person wasn't a vital concept. The idea of Author does not directly refer to a single person, but is more of a signifier of a set of styles and concepts that may or may not have actually been correctly attributed to a single creator. Foucault quotes Saint Jerome in identifying four ways that Author is conceived: 1. a level of quality/value of writing, 2. Doctrinaly and through theoretical coherence, 3. Stylistically through words and expressions, and 4. historically by biography or timeframe (ie something written 100 years after a given date of death probably does not belong to an older canon of texts). Keeping the Author-Reader-Text triangle in mind, Foucault focuses on the other two legs that Barthes does not: the relation of the Author to the Reader and how the Reader has constructed the Author; and the Author to the Text and how the Text has constructed the Author. Of course, the idea of copywright has drastically changed how the Author is conceived and placed a new importance on singular names belonging to singular texts, but this only enhances the fact that Author is a discourse, changed over the course of history.
"Las Meninas" is a fascinating text that deconstructs the gaze in the painting "Las Meninas" by Diego Rodriguez Velazquez from 1656. This is a very famous essay in which Foucault applies post-structuralist concepts to a painting and breaks down the discourse of the time. The painting is incredibly complex and difficult to describe without re-stating the entirity of Foucault's essay, but a few salient points emerge. One, in the paintng, which is of a painter creating what is presumably a portrait, the actual focus of the gaze is unknown, as the painter is looking straight forward at the viewer. The painter is essentially focused in return on the viewer. Not only that, but Velazquez himself becomes the view of his own work, as he presumably stood in the same spot as the spectator, and thus created a work that perfectly embodies the triangle of Author-Reader-Text. The other thing that is powerful about Foucault's essay itself is that, beyond idenitifying the Reader with the Author, is the way that his post-structuralist technique is actually applied to the discourse of a given period, and how that discourse is constructed. By analysing "Las Meninas," Foucault steps away from the standard idea of "Text" and applies his theories to a greater work of artistic culture, proving the versatility of his theories and his writings, which in turn prevents him from easily being categorized in terms of his philosophies.
The final text is an excerpt from "The History of Sexuality" in which Foucault traces the discourse on sexuality across history. Sexuality, he says, is a construct and a discourse, just as all things are, that stems from a relationship of power. He identifies four categories of sexual discourse: 1. the hysterization of women's bodies, 2. infantalization of child sexuality, 3. socialization of procreative behavior, and 4. institutionalizing perverse behavior. The core unit for dealing with this, the Insititutional State Apparatus if you will, is the family, but in modern times, the family is so over-burdened with the job of placing sexuality in proper discourse, it his collapsing under its own weight. Personally, the discovery of this essay comes at a very significant time, with October being Gay History month, National Coming Out Day on October 11th, and this year, a national movement to march on Washington, DC to demand action on LGBT rights. The fourth type of discourse relates immediately to homosexuality now, which as Foucault points out wasn't a discourse or type of isolated behavior until the mid 1800's, and even today, the LGBT community is a group of people who are told from the outside that they're different because of a single behavior. That single behavior has become the lynchpin of an entire global community that has banded together for the express purpose of combating the discourse surrounding institutionalized perversion. Is there an inherent quality that causes this behavior? All jokes about Cher and Madonna aside, there do seem to be common personality traits and tastes among gay men and women, sexual behavior notwithstanding. Returning to family as the basis for upholding sexual discourse, we find that those things that don't fit the "correct" patterns, like homosexuality, are removed from the family. So, gay men and women have been quick to create our own. It's an ironic statement that we call the LGBT community "the family," much like a big, gay Mafia. It only requires being kicked out of one family to realize exactly how constructed the ISA really is. I find myself correcting the community acronym even as I type (in the last five years, it has switched from GLBT to LGBT) and am surprised at how much the discourse within our own community has changed. Has Foucault revealed an even deeper, more frightening truth though? Once a discourse has been created, can it ever truly be removed? Will we ever move into a post-racial, post-genered, post-sexual society? To parrot Tony Kushner, can the forces of race, taste, and history ever really be overcome? Will they find their negations?