Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 701. page

>>9725498
added to my basket ty

>>9727129

this. Seems like a great collection of well respected writers. Looking forward to reading it.

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>>9727185
>*nglos

Actually, this is probably the best place to start with Foucault, maybe it would be good to read Genealogy of Morals, but it's not necessary. After Archeology, or alongside it, you can read Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, Foucault's other major methodological work.

Archaeology of Knowledge is probably his most difficult book by far, and I would bet that most people on /lit/ wouldn't be able to understand a fucking page of it.

You should read The Order of Things first, which is easier and is more or less the same method. And maybe even some of his work before that. There's also a book by Gary Gutting, _Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific Reason_, which is pretty good at giving background, but at a certain point I feel like Gutting just starts sampling quotes from Foucault rather than really explaining anything.

The archaeological method is a weird thing. It's easiest to understand if you understand contemporary structuralism, since (despite Foucault's protestations) its epistemology is very structuralist, and if you understand the contemporary French scene in general, which was very concerned with things like "discursive possibilities/determinations of knowledge/utterances" and was making a big show of rejecting the transcendental, self-conscious subject. Especially the "self-conscious" part of it.

It's brutally difficult. If it makes you feel any better, I took a class this year that covered it, with a leading Foucauldian, and he didn't even know what the fuck Foucault was saying a lot of the time. It was a lot of "It seems like he's saying ______ here, but it's unclear to me." And this was a guy who fucking KNEW Foucault.

>Is this book about logic?

Forgot to say, Foucault's archaeological method isn't about the archaeology of thought "in general," because he would reject there being a transcendental "in general." It's about "unearthing," by "digging down" into the structural conditions, the discursive possibility of saying (not even thinking, really, since that's internalist, though the Order of Things employs a lot of phenomenological "thinkability" demonstrations of its structural claims) things.

In any given era, there are certain discursive modalities, "historical a prioris" (i.e., historicising Kant, which Foucault sometimes claimed was his project, though Foucault is psychologistic and not transcendental), epistemic structures, that determine how things can be talked about: things like people, medical subjects, scientific objects, etc.

Once you read past the bullshit and bombast, you realise it's just phil of sci that had been done before, mixed with an unsatisfying structuralist method that Foucault himself later moved away from. OT and AK are interesting books once you can read them, but they aren't like, say, Being & Time, where the payoff is proportional to the difficulty. A lot of the difficulty is just that (ironically) the structuralist episteme is outdated.

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Anyone from Bradford, UK here? I remember seeing a Waterstone's there that I think was based inside an old synagogue and it has a coffee shop on its second floor. Always thought that was a gorgeous place for a book shop.

Pic related. It's gorgeous.

>>9725408
not seen that one but honestly one of my favourite things about waterstones is how polite everyone usually is and how enthusiastic they tend to be when you pick up a couple of great books. i also appreciate the little recommendations written by staff members, even if they are for books i don't like or care about.

it gives me a little ego boost that I love whenever i visit, picking up a large pile of books, and get complimented because there's knausgaard, homer, virginia woolf and yukio mishima all in the same pile. one worker even called my purchases eclectic. i know it sounds stupid and i know it's egotistical, but that sort of ego massaging is pleasant and shows good customer relations. it also makes sure that i keep coming back to the exact same branch time and time again (which i do ofc).

>>9725441
That's totally worth the 2000% markup over buying your books online/secondhand.

Watch this documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apmyg_IuWQI

Then read his comic book series Promethea, which is the best introduction to his views on magic

>>9724819
I literally just finished that doco! So fascinating.

Thank you.

You can try some of his early 2000A.D. work
Marvelman
V for Vendetta
Swamp Thing
Watchmen
Brought to Light
From Hell
Promethea & Tom Tomorrow
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
His recent lovecraft/cthulhu stuff

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It has words in it. If you read them, you get a sort of story in your head. Very fun, you should try it one day, OP

Pic related, my actual captcha for this post. It's funny, because I'm being douchey

>>9724363
I will never not laugh at the greatly deserved ridicule of this hack fraud. Why bother reading someone who couldn't even live with himself? The only sincere moment in the life of David Foster Wallace was when he kicked away the chair. The rest of his life was a lie, the New "Sincerity" was a joke whose punchline was the creaking of a leather belt around the rafter.

His literary career was a menagerie of self help lies told to keep his depression at bay - the audience pussy and drugs were the ghosts at that feast of hypocrisy. The depression was warranted because behind all the gimmicks and the self awareness and the bandannas was no discernible talent.

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>>9724363

>>9724035
who?

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>>9724062

I love him for his humor. It's dry and observant, with a detached yet still positive air, like he doesn't take life too seriously. For example, when touring India, he had a servant with a name he couldn't pronounce, so Twain called him Satan.

He has an approachable style while remaining poignant. All around just an excellent writer.

Byron's poetry isn't all that great either. Shelley and Blake were the superior romance poets

>>9724010
Coleridge>Byron>Wordsworth>Keats = Blake = Shelley

>>9724020
>Keats lowest

>>9723595
He pisses off sjws
Thats good enough for me

He's gay and Jewish but he says stuff that other gay and Jewish people don't. That's it.

He's attractive and successful while maintaining the ideals of the alt right. The gay thing is supposed to make him and the movement impervious to allegations of discrimination.

Doesn't matter, no one in academia cares what he has to say. I majored in English at a "public ivy" and wasn't required to read a single book from his list.

We can defend it, Anon. Together.

>>9721001

No one. There's no reason to read literature anymore since the world has changed at a fundamental level. Reading Shakepseare or Jane Austen is just plain useless, and if you want entertainment there's no reason to go for the easier pleasures of pulpy genre fiction.

ubik

>>9718098
>the science fiction and fantasy general
>the
Mr Reddit. It was Science Fiction and Fantasy General for 2+ consecutive years, don't come changing shit that doesn't need changing. This is why no one likes you upboat cunts. You're like locusts invading a 1 acre greenhouse filled with juvenile plants, you just fuck everything up and shit everywhere. An hero asap

>>9718105
Ubik

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He thought the latter possibility would degenerate mankind generally into scientists, workers and brutes; living under the last mantle of one of three ideologies, Americanism, Marxism or Nazism (which he deemed metaphysically identical, as avatars of subjectivity and institutionalized nihilism), and an unfettered totalitarian world technology.[69] Supposedly, this epoch would be ironically celebrated, as the most enlightened and glorious in human history.

He envisaged this abyss to be the greatest event in the West's history because it would enable Humanity to comprehend Being more profoundly and primordially than the Pre-Socratics.

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He didn't understand that egotism and an-cap was the best type of philosophy

he was right. that's what happened that's what the West is like now

I'm interested. Tell me more OP.

Who cares? Nothing matters lel

There's no point

>>9709642
why does it take so long to do a phd?

>>9709642
What's your dissertation about specifically?

will i ever find contentment

Whoa! You mean different societies have different mores, traditions, rituals, and differing notions of the sociological construction of childhood? I had no idea.

>a fitting metaphor for the western canon

>>9728616
degenerate detected

Liberals consistently misunderstand their favorite books. All of the books they ran out and bought after Trump won describes their ideal world. Brave New World is the end result of liberal meritocracy, liberals are the #1 purveyors of Newspeak, and Hannah Arendt locates the Origins of Totalitarianism in the desire to politicize all aspects of human life, not necessarily in big bad macho rulers. The only book they seem consistently to have read is, yeah, Harry Potter.

Oh, and the Constitution, but only when a Republican's in office.

>>9728324
>Brave New World is the end result of liberal meritocracy
Brave New World is the result of the synthesis of Marxist and Capitalist societes' worst elements. It's not conservative but it's not liberal at all. I'm tired of troglodytes who just label everything bad as "liberal/conservative" depending on which team they support.

>>9728341
>Brave New World is the result of the synthesis of Marxist and Capitalist societes' worst elements
this is the smartest thing ive ever read on this board. Good job.