Monday, September 30, 2013

Creating Meaning Within Context

Foucault discusses the many meanings of power and how we need to understand which context it is being used in in order to truly understand the meaning. This becomes a detailed example of Storey's introduction to Foucault in which he explains that discourse gives a subject meaning rather than acting only as an example of it. So, Foucault's examples of powerr are not necessary representations of power, but ways in which power is given meaning. In regards to this, he also talks about sexuality in relation to power and gives several rules for how we can think about this. 

Foucault's views fall into post-structuralism, along with Derrida. Unlike Barthes, Levi-Strauss and Saussure who hold structuralist beliefs. This means they find meaning within structure and take an analytical approach to understanding texts. Saussure begin this movement by explaining the dependence of langue, system of a language and parole, usage of a language, on one another. These influenced those after him within structuralism, but Derrida and Foucault begin to differ from this analytical view. Rather, they believed meaning was always changing and couldn't be placed into a structure. They considered texts "inseperable from the active process of its many readings." This is much like Greene's view who believed conversations are always changing and the writings at any time are always furthering them and should be adding something new. 

I found structuralism much easier to agree with, because it is easy to see Saussare's belief of the interconnectivity of the langue and parole while the more abstract views of Derrida aren't as clear. 

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