Hi all,
I was reading the description of this tribe, and the reference to Foucault's Knowledge/Power caught my eye in relation to a philosopher I'm currently readin named Evelyn Fox Keller. Keller, a feminist primarily, has a theory that she says shows an inherent androcentrism in many of the paradigms that we associate with knowledge and the persuit of it and "truth" (whatever that latter term means). Is anybody familiar with this author? One of her points is that masculinity, as a social construct, is necessarily connected with looking at things in terms of power, heirarcies, and dominance. She argues that comparisons of these natures are insufficient to describe relations between beings. Do you think that Foucault was talking about power in the same way? What about knowledge?
I was reading the description of this tribe, and the reference to Foucault's Knowledge/Power caught my eye in relation to a philosopher I'm currently readin named Evelyn Fox Keller. Keller, a feminist primarily, has a theory that she says shows an inherent androcentrism in many of the paradigms that we associate with knowledge and the persuit of it and "truth" (whatever that latter term means). Is anybody familiar with this author? One of her points is that masculinity, as a social construct, is necessarily connected with looking at things in terms of power, heirarcies, and dominance. She argues that comparisons of these natures are insufficient to describe relations between beings. Do you think that Foucault was talking about power in the same way? What about knowledge?
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Re: Evelyn Fox Keller and Foucault's andocentrism
Tue, May 31, 2005 - 10:50 AMFoucault's work up until History of Sexuality, Volume II had been largely about the interaction between institutional knowledge and institutional power, so EFK's critique is simply silly: it's akin to complaining that Sigmund Freud did not do research on mental retardation.
The institutions Foucault has researched are androcentric, and it should be noted that he goes into great detail to describe how medicine, sexology, and psychiatry sought to pathologize the feminine.
Later, Foucault's work turned to the technologies one uses to manufacture one's own self: ethics, self interpretation, meditation, journaling, etc. I don't really see how Foucault's work is essentially androcentric beyond the fact that Foucault was a man and there was certainly an autobiographical component to all his academic interests...
EFK's critique is fine, but overstated.
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Re: Evelyn Fox Keller and Foucault's andocentrism
Thu, June 2, 2005 - 11:36 PMdon't have any heavy opinions to share since i'm not too familiar with EFK's writings but just wanted to say I enjoy the posts & dialogue.
also wondering that if someone could make a film about Derrida, shouldn't there be a nice contemporary docu on Foucault...in english that is?
i'm sure there have been tons of documentaries by the self-loving french.
hehe.
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Re: Evelyn Fox Keller and Foucault's andocentrism
Sat, June 4, 2005 - 1:31 PMhow could you be a foucauldian and a feminist at the same time?
the latter is predicated on the male as an oppressive force, while the former states repeatedly that power permeates everything, and the to be oppressed has not more validitiy than to be oppressive -- one is the same as the other.
to live in the world, we exert power, simple as that. -
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Re: Evelyn Fox Keller and Foucault's andocentrism
Sun, June 5, 2005 - 5:37 PM> [feminism] is predicated on the male as an oppressive force
Not all feminists espouse that form of feminism. Some argue that the current system of gender hierarchy is historically contigent. Some even argue that this system oppresses males, but in a very different manner than the systematic oppression of females. Some feminists even argue that the most widespread force of gender oppression are females, just as some Marxists will often point out that the oppression of the worker are the deeds of other workers. -
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Re: Evelyn Fox Keller and Foucault's andocentrism
Thu, June 9, 2005 - 2:25 PMYay Third Wave!
The particular school of feminism you describe owes a large debt in fact to Foucault's Geneology of ideas/culture school of thought in fact.
I don't believe they are mutually exclusive, though Gordon's post has given me something to think about for several days.
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