Contrast and History – Michel Foucault and Neoliberalism

The paper is suggesting one possible angle for the re-examination of Foucault’s portrayal of the historical role of German neoliberalism in his 1979 lectures entitled Naissance de la biopolitique. This particular season has been the object of the increased interest in recent decades for various reasons. One of the reasons is the broader theme of “biopolitics” developed in them (as well as in the two immediately preceding seasons), which was instrumental in subsequent interpretations and applications even before the 1979 lectures became available integrally. Another reason that has fuelled various interpretations and contentions, that are still ongoing as some recent publications attest, has to do with the general setting and tone of Foucault’s dealings with neoliberalism. Debates that have ensued have mostly been centred on the question of whether or not Foucault embraced certain neoliberal tenets that he was explaining in these lectures. But what is usually overlooked in these debates is the question of the historical accuracy of the impression that emerges from the 1979 lectures about the role that German “ordoliberalism” had after WWII. It is in a way surprising considering that Foucault’s relationship with the “historians’ guild” was strained, interspersed with criticisms and polemics. Some of these critiques are sketchily reproduced here to point at certain repeating weaknesses in Foucault’s dealings with the past. Crucial failing seems to be the concept of the “cut” or discontinuity whose consequence was usually such that Foucault was often forcing great contrasts onto the past. The concluding section proposes, although in a preliminary fashion and through a short comparison, that Foucault might have overstated the role that “ordoliberal” ideas had in Germany during the 1950s and 1960s precisely because he might have accepted the view that some of these ideas were not only the motor of economic and social development, but sort of a “third way” solution

Michel Foucault i klasne borbe u Francuskoj 1968.

U radu se sagledavaju Foucaultove analize problema državne i društvene moći iz sredine 1970-ih u kontekstu političkih i društvenih okolnosti u Francuskoj nakon zbivanja u svibnju 1968. Nasuprot postavci o isključivo internom metodološkom sazrijevanju, u radu se zagovara teza da su te analize mnogo više produkt svojeg doba nego što se može činiti te da su zapravo izrasle iz postavke o post-revolucionarnoj epohi u kojoj su moguće isključivo partikularne politike identiteta što će u drugoj polovici 1970-ih zagovarati Foucault

Konstrukcija kulturne vrijednosti

Lukas Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2013. Lukas Erne, Shakespeare and the Book Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2013

The author - between the formulae of collective anonymity and the originality of singular identity

Članak nastoji pokazati u kojoj mjeri problematika ili tematika proučavanja odnosa usmenosti i pismenosti može biti od koristi za razumijevanje književne prošlosti. Glavni oslonac za takav pokušaj predstavlja pretpostavka da europske kulture postaju doista pismene kulture tek negdje pred kraj XVIII. i tokom XIX. st. jer tek tada zapravo dolazi do potpunog natapanja kulture pismom, zahvaljujući efektima tipografije. To bi istodobno značilo da znatan dio književnih tekstova prije tog vremenskog praga kruži u uvjetima u kojima se miješaju usmenost i pismenost kao dva temeljna oslonca komunikacije. U kontekstu problematike odnosa usmenosti i pismenosti, za razmatranje kulture ranog novog vijeka, u kojoj njezina dvostruka pismenost - hirografska i tipografska - nije još u XVI. i XVII. st. potpuno istisnula usmenost, osobito se pogodnim čini termin “rezidualna usmenost”. On podrazumijeva određeno miješanje usmenosti i pismenosti u kulturi koja poznaje pismo, ali u kojoj još dugo traju prakse koje potječu iz usmenosti, odnosno ispod pismenosti proviruje određen udio usmenosti. U završnom dijelu članka navode se primjeri koji ilustriraju primjenjivost takvog načina razmatranja književne povijesti, posebno u vezi sa različitim shvaćanjem nekih od temeljnih poetičkih i estetskih kategorija kao što su autorstvo, odnosno anonimnost autora, te originalnost u odnosu na formulaičnost usmenosti.The paper tries to demonstrate in which sense the study of the relationship between orality and literacy may be helpful in understanding the literary past. Such an effort is based on the supposition that European cultures do not truly become written cultures until the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in the aftermath of the invention of print which served as a catalyst in that process. By the same token, this would mean that before this chronological threshold a considerable amount of literary texts had circulated in conditions in which orality and literacy, as the two main pillars of communication, were interwoven. In the context of the relationship between orality and literacy, the term “residual orality” seems to be especially useful, particularly in the study of early modern cultures of the 16th and 17th century, whose double literacy - both chirographic and typographic - had not yet completely supplanted orality. The concept of residual orality implies that orality and literacy are intertwined in such a manner that, despite the fact that early modern cultures had by that time adopted writing, they also preserved a certain amount of orality, still visible underneath the surface of literacy. In conclusion, the paper introduces examples which illustrate how literary history can be interpreted from such a perspective, placing special focus on certain aesthetic and poetical categories, such as the authorship or anonymity of the author, as well as originality which is pitted against the formulaic nature of orality

STUDYING THE RECEPTION AND HISTORY OF READING

Članak nudi usporedbu povijesti čitanja i dosadašnjih modela proučavanja recepcije u književnosti, osobito njemačke „estetike recepcije“. Dok se, naime, u domaćim književnoznanstvenim krugovima o njemačkoj „estetici recepcije“ dosta znalo već početkom 1970-ih, to se ne može reći za povijest čitanja koja privlači sve više pažnje posljednjih desetljeća. U radu su zbog toga naznačene određene teme i perspektive karakteristične za povijest čitanja, koje bi mogle biti korisne i u proučavanju književnosti budući da povijest čitanja nadopunjuje teorije recepcije time što u istraživanjima naglasak stavlja na čitanje kao na aktivnost i društvenu praksu.The article offers a comparison between history of the reading and previous approaches in explorations of reading, such as German „reception aesthetics” or „reception theory”. But while Croatian literary studies were familiar with reception aesthetics already in the early 1970’s, the same cannot be said about history of the reading which has attracted more attention in the last few decades. Therefore some typical perspectives and topics in the history of the reading are briefly contoured for such perspectives might be useful in the literary studies, especially given the manner in which history of the reading surpasses and completes reception theory by placing focus on the reading as a social practice and activity

Author, Identification, Document

The article brings together two different approaches, the orality-literacy problematic as it was developed in the works of Albert Lord, Walter Ong and others on the one hand, and conceptualizing of biopolitics as it was worked out in the later works of Michel Foucault, on the other. A combination of these two perspectives forms the general background which enables one to see changes in the understanding of authorship, particularly identification of the author as a part of a much broader process through which Western societies actually became societies of documents, used in various domains, in the eighteenth century, that is in the period which marks the beginnings of the era of biopolitics and statistics. At the same time, such a framing of the authorship helps to explain why anonymity has become so unacceptable in the modern era, while it used to be a much more common phenomenon in the past

The author - between the formulae of collective anonymity and the originality of singular identity

Članak nastoji pokazati u kojoj mjeri problematika ili tematika proučavanja odnosa usmenosti i pismenosti može biti od koristi za razumijevanje književne prošlosti. Glavni oslonac za takav pokušaj predstavlja pretpostavka da europske kulture postaju doista pismene kulture tek negdje pred kraj XVIII. i tokom XIX. st. jer tek tada zapravo dolazi do potpunog natapanja kulture pismom, zahvaljujući efektima tipografije. To bi istodobno značilo da znatan dio književnih tekstova prije tog vremenskog praga kruži u uvjetima u kojima se miješaju usmenost i pismenost kao dva temeljna oslonca komunikacije. U kontekstu problematike odnosa usmenosti i pismenosti, za razmatranje kulture ranog novog vijeka, u kojoj njezina dvostruka pismenost - hirografska i tipografska - nije još u XVI. i XVII. st. potpuno istisnula usmenost, osobito se pogodnim čini termin “rezidualna usmenost”. On podrazumijeva određeno miješanje usmenosti i pismenosti u kulturi koja poznaje pismo, ali u kojoj još dugo traju prakse koje potječu iz usmenosti, odnosno ispod pismenosti proviruje određen udio usmenosti. U završnom dijelu članka navode se primjeri koji ilustriraju primjenjivost takvog načina razmatranja književne povijesti, posebno u vezi sa različitim shvaćanjem nekih od temeljnih poetičkih i estetskih kategorija kao što su autorstvo, odnosno anonimnost autora, te originalnost u odnosu na formulaičnost usmenosti.The paper tries to demonstrate in which sense the study of the relationship between orality and literacy may be helpful in understanding the literary past. Such an effort is based on the supposition that European cultures do not truly become written cultures until the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in the aftermath of the invention of print which served as a catalyst in that process. By the same token, this would mean that before this chronological threshold a considerable amount of literary texts had circulated in conditions in which orality and literacy, as the two main pillars of communication, were interwoven. In the context of the relationship between orality and literacy, the term “residual orality” seems to be especially useful, particularly in the study of early modern cultures of the 16th and 17th century, whose double literacy ‡ both chirographic and typographic ‡ had not yet completely supplanted orality. The concept of residual orality implies that orality and literacy are intertwined in such a manner that, despite the fact that early modern cultures had by that time adopted writing, they also preserved a certain amount of orality, still visible underneath the surface of literacy. In conclusion, the paper introduces examples which illustrate how literary history can be interpreted from such a perspective, placing special focus on certain aesthetic and poetical categories, such as the authorship or anonymity of the author, as well as originality which is pitted against the formulaic nature of orality

Michel Foucault i klasne borbe u Francuskoj 1968.

U radu se sagledavaju Foucaultove analize problema državne i društvene moći iz sredine 1970-ih u kontekstu političkih i društvenih okolnosti u Francuskoj nakon zbivanja u svibnju 1968. Nasuprot postavci o isključivo internom metodološkom sazrijevanju, u radu se zagovara teza da su te analize mnogo više produkt svojeg doba nego što se može činiti te da su zapravo izrasle iz postavke o post-revolucionarnoj epohi u kojoj su moguće isključivo partikularne politike identiteta što će u drugoj polovici 1970-ih zagovarati Foucault

Author, Identification, Document

The article brings together two different approaches, the orality-literacy problematic as it was developed in the works of Albert Lord, Walter Ong and others on the one hand, and conceptualizing of biopolitics as it was worked out in the later works of Michel Foucault, on the other. A combination of these two perspectives forms the general background which enables one to see changes in the understanding of authorship, particularly identification of the author as a part of a much broader process through which Western societies actually became societies of documents, used in various domains, in the eighteenth century, that is in the period which marks the beginnings of the era of biopolitics and statistics. At the same time, such a framing of the authorship helps to explain why anonymity has become so unacceptable in the modern era, while it used to be a much more common phenomenon in the past

Konzervativna revolucija i čista filozofija

Pierre Bourdieu, Politička ontologija Martina Heideggera, prev. Rade Kalanj, Zagreb: TIM press, 2022, 179 str