Theory seminar with Arianna Bove

Theory seminar with Arianna Bove (Queen Mary/University of London):

‘Discourse is a violence that we do to things, or in any case, an order that we impose on them’. ‘Sciences create protocols of language in order to 'represent' the 'order of things' to the mind for reflection and analysis. But language is one thing among others. In every effort to capture the 'order of things' in language, we condemn a certain aspect of that order to obscurity.’

‘The bios philosophikos as straight life is the human being’s animality taken up as a challenge, practiced as an exercise, and thrown in the face of others as a scandal.’

What is the order of discourse? How does one make visible the rules of exclusion and inclusion, prohibition and divisions that underlie an existing regime of truth? Is it possible to subvert this order? What does it mean to speak the truth to power? From The order of discourse (1970), to The courage of the truth (1983), we will explore Michel Foucault’s critical and genealogical trajectory, from the darkness of structuralism to a renewed project of enlightenment, using his texts as an experiment in critical reading.

In preparation, read The order of discourse and highlight obscure passages, words or ideas, identify points of agreements and disagreements, doubts and questions, and be ready to discuss them.

You can find the texts here:
Michel Foucault, The Order of Discourse (1970)
http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/sbaumgarten/Foucault_The%20Order%20of%20Discourse.pdf
Michel Foucault, The Courage of the Truth. The Government of Self and Others II (1983-1984)
http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/events_readings/cgc/foucault_CdF_84_CT_complete.pdf
A useful introduction is Friedrich Nietzsche ‘On truth and lies in an extra-moral sense’ (1873)
http://imrl.usu.edu/6890/OnTruthandLies.pdf