Jan 25, Jan 30: From Foucault to Mao

Dear All Good People,

This is placeholder post (to become real text soon) with questions that may guide our discussion today, as well as a link to the workspace we started last week and will bring to culmination on Tuesday (Jan. 30):

  • Lyon and Olson: What are all the ways they define (implicitly or explicitly) “human rights rhetoric”? All the ways they justify its importance as a discourse?
  • Lyon and Olson: what’s the relationship between human rights and symbols (symbolic representations, a la Burke)? Between witnessing and symbolic representation? 
  • Lyon and Olson: What are some risks and limits of a rhetorical approach to human rights? Relationship between HR rhetoric and notions of “power” (207)? 
  • Foucault: What’s the relationship between authorship and symbols (symbolic representations, a la Burke)? Between authorship and witnessing? 
  • Foucault: What are some problems with authorship? Some risks and limits of authorial identification? 
  • Foucault: Relationship between authorship and power? Between power and author-function? 
  • How do Lyon/Olson and Foucault build away from Burke’s “identification” as a driving/guiding force for textual interpretation?
  • How much does/should an author really control the final product of his/her work?


And, the workspace link.

-Prof. Graban