Foucault’s canvas

The singularities of the articulable and the visible

Bibliographic Data

ID20318384
AuthorsDušan Marinković (0000-0002-5352-4719, University of Novi Sad), Dusan Ristic (0000-0003-2239-6686, University of Graz)
Year2024
Volume66
Issue4
Pages612-628
Publication date2024-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociologija (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0318 • E-ISSN: 2406-0712
PublisherNational Library of Serbia (PUBLISHER • RS)
DOI10.2298/soc2404612m
OpenAlexW4406477648
LanguageEN
References cited11

Looking back at Foucault?s analytical tool-box and its relevance today, we take on the methodological dimensions and effects of archeology and genealogy. We start from the assumption that archeology and genealogy are two different but related analytical frameworks and registers of historical time. Archeology is a register in which what is said at one time remains in the modality of the archive. Genealogy is a register in which time emerges on the surface of events, on one hand remaining in the time of origin, and on the other branching out into the present day. In this paper, we argue that such an analytical approach has two key dimensions that make Foucault?s work distinctive and contemporary. Those dimensions are space and transformation, and not discontinuity. For Foucault, space is subject to historical transformation and allows time to become visible in the different registers of archeology and genealogy. The search for transformations-when it comes to archeology-led Foucault to analyze the depth of formation of the regularities of the articulable, while in terms of genealogy, it led him to the practices, power, and knowledge that become shaped on the surface of visibility of our history of the present. We see the entirety of this set of analytical procedures as Foucault?s painting, visual method, and that is why we use the metaphor of a canvas. Foucault?s main analytical and methodological contribution to the studies of philosophy, social sciences and humanities, in this sense, can be represented by the metaphor of dust compared to clouds-or rather, problematization and the analysis of singularities, compared to the search for core principles, generalizations, or transhistorical laws of society

Gravitational singularity · Mathematical analysis · Sociology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Mathematics · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Spatial and Cultural Studies

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