There's something odd about this http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-the-spirit-of-terrorism.html Firstly it's parochial. World Cup in France, Diana dying in France. Then the events strike - then 9/11 and I think back to Forget Foucault and the slaughtering Baudrillard gave to the History of Sexuality and I'm paraphrasing because I flogged FF on amazon: "a prose that floats so beautifully above its theory" and it does; it's measured and historical but is Baudrillard not equally guilty in the spirit of Terrorism. I know he made amends in Forget Baud but why was Fouc such a target. Derrida's blast at Madness and Civilization was understandable because he was trapped in the mentor/student relationship with all its Nietzchean context as demonstrated in Deleuze's work. But it's fascinating that so much of the polemics focused on Foucault's work. (I know there were academic differences and Virillio basically said that Discipline and Punish was a rip-off of one of his MA pupils thesis!)
Sorry for the rant but I don't think he gets any justice and neither does Bataille but that's a rant for another day.
2 comments:
I broadly agree. I think he was shafted and has certainly not been acknowledged enough in the UK. Queer studies, all Eagleton's work owes him a massive debt. I did cultural studies in London in the late 80's and he was an unspoken guru then.
Mactabilis
It's tricky because "all roads lead back to Bataille" or again to paraphrase Fouc, "I read Nietzche because I'd read Bataille" is historically a simplification but I think because he got involved grassroots-style and at the same time wished to disassociate himself from the "political". He appeared to be trying to have his cake and eat it too. But to witness the Chomsky v Foucault debate is that Choms never really understood what he was trying to say
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