Dark Days

甲：Man, it doesn't matter who the hack you are.

Godard: -_- Like I care.









I am taking a shit load of theory class this quarter (might get rid one, yet it would be a tough decision...). Talking about learning theories is a very pretentious thing. Yet, I need to digest Foucault, Saussure, Marx and Frued, just because I need to....and here we go:

The quarter just started, Foucault's "What is an author?" is the first article we read. Couple questions were raised in the discussion:

What is the difference between the writer and the author?

What is the function of the author?

What is the discourse created or addressed by the author?

How the discourse of literature and science different?

Also, what Foucault's interpretation about "discourse" in general?

There is always a writer behind the text, yet there is not necessary an author behind. This is because the idea of the author is created through the development of literature, religious text and scientific text. Partially, the author is a given name that functions as a owner of the work. In addition, the life of the author him/herself also becomes a part of the work and therefore make the work change through the additional information that found around the author. In this sense, a work which has a reachable author is framed different from a work that has a anonymous writer.

The function of an author becomes a part of the mechanism that how the work/ the thought of the work. Plus, the relationship between the author and the text, the reader and the text, a discourse emerged. Although both science and literature create discourses that related to the author who creates thoughts, knowledge and text, the discourse in these two fields are different. In scientific world, the discourse is fixed. Through empirical experiments or pure math/ logical debate, the discourse made be defeated and changed completely. However, to literature or social theories, the discourse is not only a open text and constantly change, but the author also does not necessary fit into the discourse when it develops/evolves.

---In regarding to what discussed above, I quote:
"One does not declare certain propositions in the work of these founders to be false: instead, when trying to seize the act of founding, one sets aside those statements that are not pertinent, either because they are deemed inessential, or because they are considered "prehistoric" and derived from another type of discursively. In other words, unlike the founding of a science, the initiation of a discursive practice does not participate in its later transformations." --F
---
I still have not much clue how to interpret Foucault's concept of "discourse" though...)

Finally, the conclusion for this article, the closest thing I could guess is: Modern criticism of a text does not necessary need to includes the existence of the author. Instead, the discourse that frames the function and the development of the text/ or the thoughts in the text matters more than who the author is.