Does Foucault Have a Published 'Œuvre'?

• Main Author: William A. B. Parkhurst
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Open Library of Humanities 2020-06-01
• Series: Le foucaldien
• Subjects: foucault; oeuvre; methodology; author function; publication history
• Online Access: https://foucaldien.net/articles/73

Despite the veneer of agreement, Foucault scholars disagree deeply about where to demarcate the published from the unpublished texts of Foucault. I differentiate four, often tacit, demarcation criteria commonly used by scholars through a survey of the secondary literature (publication, publication*, authorization, and publicness). These demarcation criteria generate different and non-coextensive sets of texts categorized as published. Each of these demarcation criteria are problematized by Foucault's complex publication history. The presupposition that there exists a clear division between published and unpublished texts is a false dichotomy and should be abandoned. Instead, scholars must be explicit about why particular kinds of historical evidence are valuable to their projects and avoid abstractions. This should lead to historically informed methodological discussions with a focus on the material facts of individual texts rather than relying on an abstract and historically falsifiable dichotomy.