The navigational process has begun. As I attempt to navigate through my confusion, thoughts questioning my identity begin to plague my mind...
"Who am I?"
"Is the individual an author?"
"What is work?"
"Am I an author?"
Fumbling through what seems like an endless tunnel, I seem to fail to gain what I first set out to seek...enlightenment. Lesson after lesson, assignment after assignment...each appears more mammoth than the last.
So what IS an author? According to Foucault, an author is not simply an element of speech. It's presence is functional in that it serves as a means of classification. It differentiates texts and provides them with an identity...an identity!
There are basically four different features of the author-function:
1. It is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine, and articulate the realm of discourses.
2. It does not operater in a uniform manner in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture.
3. It is not defined by the spontaneous attribution of a text to its creator, but through a series of precise and complex procedures.
4. It does not refer, purely and simply, to an actual individual insofar as it simultaneously gives rise to a variety of egos and to a series of subjective positions that individuals of any class may come to occupy.
ARRIVAL at the destination
Back to my DEPARTURE
Last modified on Friday, September 15, 2000. Created by system with Storyspace 1.7.5b2a © Copyright 2000 Eastgate Systems Inc.. ../images/html/journey.html.