From: "Tom Choi" <tom.choi-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: foucault/derrida
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 01:57:45 -0400


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oh, but they have a wonderful history...

derrida enthusiastically attended lectures given by foucault about madness around the time that 'folie et deraison' appeared.  but within a couple of years, derrida delivered a lecture on foucault and madness in which he criticized the 'totalizing' aspects of foucault's work on madness (and foucault happened to be in the audience--doh!).  the lectures were eventually collected in derrida's 'writing and difference' under the chapter "cogito and the history of madness."  foucault reserved his indignance and fury for nearly ten years but eventually published his scintillating reply as "my  body, this paper, this fire" in 1971.  (you gotta love the title.)  i think that he wrote this piece right after hearing derrida and withheld it from publication until later.  most of the scintillating tidbits about their conflict can be found in deidre eribon's biography of foucault (pages 119-21).  foucault's response was included in the 1972 french edition of 'folie' and the english translation can be found in volume 2 of "the essential works of foucault," the new press.  finally, derrida most recently revisited this conflict with foucault in 1991 and this essay "'to do justice to freud': the history of madness in the age of psychoanalysis" can be found in "foucault and his interlocutors," arnold davidson, ed, university of chicago press. 

for the most part derrida is always complimentary of his former teacher.  i don't think that foucault thought much of derrida as he often contrasted his methods from deconstruction in interviews.  perhaps, foucault's "what is an author?" can be read in contrast to deconstruction.  and maybe one could also contrast foucault's insistence on anonymity (as in the interview "the masked philosopher" where he conducted an interview anonymously) with derrida today as a celebrity icon in american literary circles.  certainly, one can argue that derrida has become that "universal intellectual" that foucault so despised in sartre.  and we should also note that foucault always refused the labels of "postmodernism" and "poststructuralism."


hope this helps,

tom.

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