fundamental author

is a figure like marx and freud who have found disciplines and who produce writing practices discontinuous with the practices that preceded them and that follow from them.

If the author disappeared, Foucault claims, so would the entire cultural realm under the author's jurisdiction. But Foucault postulates a different kind of author to explain figures (like Marx and Freud) whose work is discontinuous with the cultural realm. Such authors do not function within already existing discursive practices but are instead fundamental in a double sense: they found disciplines that are discontinuous with previous ones... and, unlike other cultural subjects, 'fundamental'' authors produce writing practices discontinuous with the practices that follow from them.

is an author (like freud or marx) who, by creating a new discipline, conflates the cultural duties of the traditional author (who initiates a new cultural practice) and the critic (who exposes the limits, inconsistencies, and unwarranted assumptions of the new practice).

Foucault's 'fundamental' author opens up the cultural sphere by transforming the self-referential qualities underwritten by the author into a kind of planned heterogeneity. In a sense, the 'fundamental', author conflates the cultural duties of the traditional author (who initiates a new cultural practice) and the critic (who exposes the limits, inconsistencies, and unwarranted assumptions of the new practice). Insofar as he initiates both his own practice as well as the revisionary (implicitly critical) practices discontinuous with it, however, the fundamental author simply incorporates an otherwise separate critical, discourse into his means of elaborating the internal differentiations vital to this continued cultural life of new disciplines. Foucault's redefinition of the author has not actually introduced a new form of cultural agency for the author... in fact, it has merely restored to the author a cultural power so general in its deployment (what ongoing cultural practices cannot claim to be an activation of function discontinuous with prior practice') and so pervasive in its effect that the work of the 'fundamental,, author cannot be distinguished from any other exercise of power in the cultural sphere.

is one who, by incorporating into his own practice the otherwise separate revisionary (implicitly critical) practices discontinuous to it, supplies his new discipline with the means of elaborating the internal differentiations vital to its continued cultural life.

Insofar as he initiates both his own practice as well as the revisionary (implicitly critical) practices discontinuous with it, however, the fundamental author simply incorporates an otherwise separate critical, discourse into his means of elaborating the internal differentiations vital to this continued cultural life of new disciplines. Foucault's redefinition of the author has not actually introduced a new form of cultural agency for the author... in fact, it has merely restored to the author a cultural power so general in its deployment (what ongoing cultural practices cannot claim to be an activation of function discontinuous with prior practice') and so pervasive in its effect that the work of the 'fundamental,, author cannot be distinguished from any other exercise of power in the cultural sphere.

fundamental author, n.Definitions

fundamental author