Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 10:14:00 -0400
From: Jeffrey Hearn <jeffreyhearn-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: Historians


And yet, Foucault should _not_ be thought of as simply another Annales
school historian.
  
"I have tried to get out of the philosophy of the subject through a
genealogy of the subject, by studying the constitution of the subject
across history which has led us up to the modern concept of the subject. 
This has not been an easy task, since most historians prefer a history of
social processes [in which society plays the role of subject] and most
philosophers prefer a subject without history. This has neither prevented
me from using the same material that certain social historians used, nor
from recognizing my theoretical debt to those philosophers who, like
Nietzsche, have posed the question of the historicity of the subject."
M.F., "Subjectivity and Truth" (p. 176) in _The Politics of Truth_
(Semiotext(e), 1997).

For historians that influenced Foucault, historians of science such as
Canguilhem must be kept in mind.  For historians influenced by Foucault,
see the bibliographies at The Untimely Past website
<http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jeffreyhearn/home~1.htm>. But one
might also want to look for work that is labeled "genealogy" or
"nomadology", rather than "history".  

The question I keep asking myself is whether or not
traditional/conventional/professional/modern historiography and
Foucault-influenced/postmodern/poststructuralist/genealogical (call it what
you will) historiography can coexist within the same discourse, or are they
necessarily going to talk past each other?  

What I see going on these days is a reactionary attempt by the former to
define the latter as an excessive phase that has now passed (see
_Encounters: Philosopy of History after Postmodernism_, Domanska, Ed., or
_Beyond the Cultural Turn_, Bonnell and Hunt, Eds.).   Is it, perhaps, no
coincidence that the latter sort of work is rarely done within the
discipline of history?  If a historian's practice is more closely related
to Nietzsche than positivism, can they find a place within the discipline
of history (without having first obtained tenure doing more or less
conventional work)?  Is the former necessarily founded upon theoretical
assumptions that the latter so radically calls into question that they
can't really be considered to be doing the same thing?

Might not the relation of the practice of Braudel & Co. to the practice of
Foucault & Co. be something akin to what the practice of alchemy was to the
practice of chemistry?

Jeffrey Hearn
The Untimely Past

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Sender: owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
From: Andrew Collins <anar_schizo-AT-hotmail.com>
To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Historians
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 23:43:44 PDT
Reply-To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

 
In an interview entitled, 'the Discourse of History' (1967), which can be 
found in 'Foucault Live,' Foucault mentions the names of Fernand Braudel, 
Francois Furet, Denis Richet, and Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie. These French 
historians all belong to the Annales school. They are mentioned by Foucault

in reference to 'The Order of Things.' Foucault claims that these 
historians, among others, have contributed greatly to a new understanding
of 
historical knowledge. I believe also that Foucault was influenced by the 
medieval historian, Georges Duby.


>From: tennis <praxiszine-AT-yahoo.com>
>To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Historians
>Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 18:51:21 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Can anyone provide me with a list of historians
>inspired by Foucault or historians that inspired
>Foucault himself?
>
>Any help is greatly appreciated.
>
>Travis Ennis