Being in Discourse with Foucault: The Practice of Life

This article performs an experimental reading of Foucault’s selected writings as a creative intervention into the operation of “discourse” and our formation in it both as academic “knowers” and subjects of contemporary government. Drawing inspiration from Foucault’s intellectual project read as a series of responses to his diagnoses of “our historical present”, it seeks to develop a practice of writing and scholarly discussion that provides alternative vistas of engagement between writer, reader and text. Ultimately, the project sets out to re-politicize everyday practices of academic life, (in the hope of) enabling the emergence of new experiences of both discourse and self.