Foucault’s ‘discourse’ cannot span pre-modern centuries and capitalist eras alike

Evidence

Now, the idea that there could be a discourse - that is to say, an epistemic construction - traversing the whole breadth of ‘Western’ history and textualities, spanning not only the modern capitalist period but all the preceding pre-capitalist periods as well, is not only an un-Marxist but also a radically un-Foucauldian idea. The Foucault of Discipline and Punish simply would not have accepted that there is any kind of integral relationship between Ancient Greek and modern Western Europe, except that post-Renaissance Europe begins to trace its lineage, in a more or less fantastic manner, from that Antiquity, while reversing most of its prevailing presuppositions. And at that point Foucault never spoke of a fullfledged discourse before the sixteenth century because what he then called ‘discourse’ presumes, as coextensive c<;>rollary, a rationalism of the postmedieval kind, alongside the increasing elaborations of modern state forms, modern institutional grids, objectified economic productions, modern forms of rationalized planning. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 665

Categorization

• XREF: The reader’s stated purpose traces Foucault’s race-struggle counter-history from Society Must Be Defended; here Ahmad polices Foucault’s own historicist boundaries against those who would stretch ‘discourse’ transhistorically. — connects to: Foucault’s later work broke from his own earlier discourse-determinism — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 697; Postmodernism discourse must be dated to its specific historical conjuncture — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 597; Said’s era-spanning generalizations misuse Foucault’s historically bounded concept of discourse — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 57 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Said’s era-spanning generalizations misuse Foucault’s historically bounded concept of discourse #corroborates (0.90) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 57
• Foucault’s later work broke from his own earlier discourse-determinism #corroborates (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 697
• Postmodernism discourse must be dated to its specific historical conjuncture #expands (0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 597