Becoming Foucaultian: A Theory of Reading, Dialogic Prose, and Intersubjectivity

One cannot venture far into the literature of contemporary political theory without encountering the legacy of Michel Foucault. His writing locates itself at the center of a discourse of power, knowledge, freedom, and subjectivity. But despite his pervasive influence on many now-famous works in political theory (and despite his own substantial corpus of writing), the experience of reading Foucault vis-a-vis his secondary literature invokes the Heraclitian idea that once cannot put a foot in the same Foucaultian river twice. Ironically, Foucault\u27s text appears to escape a disciplined identity as it emerges from each re-reading in flux: opposing minds read Foucault to support opposing conclusions. Notwithstanding Foucault\u27s variously construed identity in secondary literature, he does, as even his most obdurate critics concede, discontent established norms of philosophy and political agency