Rhetoric Society Quarterly May 2014

Untimely Historiography? Foucault’s “Greco-Latin Trip”

Susan C. Jarratt Schlumberger (Ireland)

Abstract

Around 1980, Michel Foucault took a new direction in his historical work. This essay poses a question about the historiographical stance Foucault adopts in his late lectures by contrasting them with an early essay, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” The central question concerns the status of “critical history,” a term Foucault derives from Friedrich Nietzsche. The turn toward ethics in the later work combines with Foucault’s urge toward a rapprochement with philosophy as a discipline and his engagement with canonical works of antiquity in a constellation of effects that seem to blunt the critical edge of his earlier historiography. It is finally through a turn toward the Cynics very near the end of his career that Foucault revives a form of historiographical untimeliness.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2014-05-27
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2014.911559
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
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Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Vivian (2021)
    The Incitement: An Account of Language, Power, and Fascism
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  2. Chaput et al. (2019)
    Rhetorical Hegemony: Transactional Ontologies and the Reinvention of Material I…
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  3. Catchings (2016)
    Sponsoring True Feeling: Literacy, Parrhêsia , and Civic Mythos in the Writings…
    Written Communication

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