New Historicism Flashcards
Who is an important thinker?
Michel Foucault
What are the key terms Michel Foucault thought of, and what do they mean?
Discourse (discursive formations)
•“The body of statements, analysis, opinions, etc., relating to a particular domain of intellectual or social activity, esp. as characterized by recurring themes, concepts, or values; the set of shared beliefs, values, etc., implied or expressed by this.”
•In a Foucauldian sense, interconnected claims and statements that serve to produce a field of (supposedly) objective knowledge
The panopticon
•“a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” through self-policing
What says Historicism?
Every moment in history is unique and fundamentally different
•Social and cultural phenomena cannot be considered independently of their historical context
•History is only accessible through its representation in documents, so history is textual rather than factual
What are the key notions of New Historicism?
- Literature can also serve to reveal how history is textually constructed
- Therefore, literary texts and historical documents should be studied in parallel
- Most importantly, such texts offer revealing expressions (and consolidations) of the power structures that dominate societies
- Originated in the study of Renaissance / Early Modern literature (especially Shakespeare) through the works of Stephen Greenblatt
- But has since spread to other fields in literary and cultural analysis
What are key notions of cultural materialism?
Cultural: everything is textual
•Materialism: the opposite of idealism, i.e. a Marxist approach to acknowledging how societal and economic circumstances shape cultural products
•The past can be analysed to criticise the power structures that dominate the present
•Likewise, contemporary appropriations can be analysed to criticise how the past is manipulated by the current power structures
