The death of the author, remembrance and identification: how theories create a convergence

The death of the author; remembrance and identification: how theories create a convergence

In “What is an author” Foucault argues for how authorship is determined after the death of the composer of the text. It’s meaning and higher message as well as level of understanding can only be gleamed, fully understood and appreciated after the author is dead. He also purports that it is nigh improbable as well as impossible to truly gleam what the author was like or what their work was truly meant to emphasize and signify after their death. He offers us a critical lens into how our culture and past cultures have tried to use writing as a vehicle and mode to escape death. Our culture has metamorphosed this idea of narrative, or writing, as something designed to ward off death. writing has become linked to sacrifice, even to the sacrifice of life: it is now a voluntary effacement which does not need to be represented in books, since it is brought about in the writer’s very existence. (905)

There exists an ambiguity and anonymity regarding the author and their motives and via analyzing their works we as reader can attempt to find the meaning and connect their life, however all of this is shrouded to us, lost through their death that not even their work can extract. To imagine writing as absence seems to be a simple repetition, in transcendental terms, of both the religious principle of inalterable and yet never fulfilled tradition, and the aesthetic principle of the work’s survival, its perpetuation beyond the author’s death and its enigmatic excess in relation to him. (906)

            The parting thoughts that are left at the conclusion of Foucault’s piece are very ambiguous and open in their interpretation. Within them he throws open the notion of an author and dismantles its necessitation and significance. Stating that in essence it really does not matter who wrote what is being composed and that their current disposition when having worked with the piece also is of no consequence. Does this mean that Foucault analyzed the function of an author as one who writes to escape death and society through writing and then at the very end disposes all of this by saying that it is all indeed void of meaning? And is there a hidden meaning through this nullification of terms and analyses? —And what part of his deepest self did he express his discourse? What are the modes of existence of his discourse? Where has it been used, and how can it circulate, and who can appropriate it for himself? What are the places in it where there is room for possible subjects? —And behind all these questions, we would hear hardly anything but the stirring of an indifference; “What difference does it make who is speaking?”

Applying Burke’s theories have proven very applicable when it comes to creating linkages between human right campaigns. Identification for Burke; is rhetorical symbolic action if used, can be used to persuade people that they are identical. When identifying with someone, you two share substance. Consubstantiation for Burke would mean being together yet at the same time apart. This would mean that he would perceive identification as being a step towards persuasion. There is identification in division. Autonomy; even if you think you aren’t concerned, identification makes you concerned. A breakdown of the identification process would look like this; concept/framework-> summarize artifacts (in this case human rights and authorship). -> summarize. -> Analysis, framework, artifact.

This framework can be used in tandem to make sense of Foucault’s claims to create a broader expansion of pairing authorship to Burke’s theory of identification.

Internal system of exclusion-> 1. commentary is used to create a system of discourse (canon) 2. Author-> function of an author = credibility. Author function-> used to make/or not make someone an authority.

Ultimately identification and authorship compliment one another due to Burke’s theory creating the constraints and exigencies for the author function to serve itself. Identification represents the backbone in which authorship can weave itself into. When it comes to the applicability of applying these theories to human rights campaigns, the protests and the need to create change as well as the documented posts of those suffering all serve as the constraints and the exigencies, and the notion of authorship applies to the people who are writing these posts, and documenting these events. Those who are experiencing these realities and expressing them in their own personal ways and methodologies to change them.

                                                             Works cited
Lyon, Arabella & Olson, C Lester, Special Issue on human rights rhetoric: traditions of testifying and witnessing.
Foucault, Michel, What is an auhor
Burke, Kenneth, On symbols and society, The nature of human action.