CCR 720: Foucault (1969) "What is an Author?"

Foucault, Michel. "What Is an Author?" Bulletin de la Societe francaise de Philosophie 63.3 (1969): 73-104. Rpt. Language, Countermemory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977. 113-38.

Foucault’s initial task in “What is an author?” is to illustrate how our assumptions of author and authorship have led us to consider “him” (the author) as either heroic (since historically and culturally texts have been viewed as religiously transcended, sacred, creative, and original works) or dead (since the form and product of writing outlives the life of the author and since the form and product of writing does not make evident for readers that the author is a historically, socially, and culturally shaped individual). In response to this initial argument, Foucault suggests that instead of merely accepting that the author is dead, we should examine the new meanings and functions of “author.”

Foucault’s first examination is that of the function of an author’s proper name. He posits how the author’s proper name both describes and designates the author in relationship to authored texts: an author’s name “serves as a means of classification,” “establishes different forms of relationships among texts,” and “characterizes a particular manner of existence of discourse…regulated by the culture in which it circulates” (123). Next, the “author function” is further categorized as having the following characteristics: 1) the function of author has been and continues to be grounded in legal and institutional definitions of authorship and discourse; 2.) the function of author varies and changes across time and across genres (e.g. anonymity is likely for scientific texts and unlikely for literary works); 3.) society’s constructions of authors as individuals are merely projections of the multiple egos that function for any given author.

It appears as if Foucault’s subsequent discussion concerns broader functions of author to include disciplinary knowledge and practices. He extends his definition of author to include authorship of ideas, theories, or traditions and assesses authors of this kind for their ability to “occupy a ‘transdiscursive’ position” (131). In other words, he considers certain originators of thought or tradition (like Freud or Marx) to be “initiators of discursive practices” since their work has served as the cited foundations for significant disciplinary research and practice. (His description of citing founding texts on page 135 very much reminded me of Swales’ “moves”: where scholars review important literature, present a gap in that literature, and then fill that space with their own research, thus transforming disciplinary knowledge). Foucault concludes with a call to research and analysis that moves beyond our assumptions that authors act as evidence for authenticity or authority or that authors’ unique selves are somehow expressed within their texts; instead, we should look historically and discursively at the role of author in “its mode of existence: the modifications and variations, within any culture, or modes of circulation, valorization, attribution, and appropriation” (137).