1. Michel Foucault -
What is an Author?
Research Methods
Monday, 1/30/12

2. Writing Prompt
In Sherman Alexie's short story "Breaking and
Entering," the narrator reveals that he is Native,
not white. How (if at all) would it change the
events of the story if (a) he was white or (b) he
was Native but did not tell us?
How would it change our reading of the story if
the author, Alexie, was white and not Native?

3. Writer as Dead Man?
" . . . the mark of the writer
is reduced to nothing more
than the singularity of his
absence; he must assume
the role of the dead man in
the game of writing" (102-
3).

4. The Author's Name
How is the author's name different from any
other proper name? (pages 106-7)
What is Foucault's term for this difference?

5. Punishing the Author
Foucault suggests
that the author's
name becomes
important in
relationship to
changing systems of
legal punishment
and property. What's
he talking about
here? (pages 108-9)

6. Science vs. Literature
Foucault argues that a reversal takes place
between science and what comes to be called
literature, in terms of the author and authority.
What does he argue?

7. Author vs Writer vs Narrator
"Everyone knows that, in a novel narrated in
the first person, neither the first-person pronoun
nor the present indicative refers exactly either
to the writer or to the moment in which he
writes, but rather to an alter ego whose
distance from the author varies, often changing
in the context of the work. It would be just as
wrong to equate the author with the real writer
as to equate him with the fictitious speaker; the
author function is carried out and operates in
the scission itself, in this divisoin and this
distance" (112).

8. Transdiscursivity
What does this mean?
How are Marx and Freud examples?
How is this different from a scientific discourse?

9. Foucault's Proposals
1. The author function reduces the danger that
fiction poses to the world.
2. The author does not
precede the text.
What is he talking about?!?
And how does this relate to
social science methods?!?