The Function of Authorship

"The function of the author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within society."
- Michael Foucault

Given Foucault's many different and important ideas about how "authorship" functions according to cultural criteria and how author's names are not proper names, I thought it might be interesting to investigate how Foucault's name functions in the field of literary theory. With the death of the author and Foucault himself as a victim, how does his name become an "object of appropriation?" Does his name suggest a certain level of quality? Are some of the texts he has written excluded from the body of work he is said to have "authored" because they do not demonstrate a "conceptual or theoretical coherence?" Or because they are stylistically different? Do readers seek to classify his "author-function" by examining the plurality of egos in his work (works narrated in the first person)? Are his writings more highly valued than others because they bear his name? Does his name hold productive power because of the knowledge he represents as an "intellectual gatekeeper?"

By merely browsing through Foucault's English-language Wikipedia page, we can draw some conclusions about the author-function of his name. Immediately I notice that on the right hand side of the web page, there are two lists: one of names of people that influenced Foucault, another of names of people that he influenced. His influences include Nietzsche, Marx, Borges, Kant, and others, but of course, these influences only include other notable intellectuals (nowhere on the list is his father, Paul Foucault). Foucault may interpret this data as indicative of the way in which the author functions always as a member of a larger group or school of thought. Authors must be linked to other authors and thinkers and thus their names function in order to represent larger ideas and periods of time. The name of the author has nothing to do with the individual person behind that same name. This is further evidenced by how the Wikipedia article classifies him by "school/tradition" and by "main interests": "Continental Philosophy, Structuralism, Post-structuralism," and "history of ideas, epistemology, ethics-political, philosophy," respectively. The author is now a product of consumption, manipulated by labels to function within specific cultures and societies. It is also interesting to note that the opening paragraph in Foucault's biography in the Norton Anthology states:

"Michael Foucault is arguably the most influential European writer and thinker of the second half of the twentieth century. His unclassifiable work (is it history? philosophy? cultural theory?) is controversial and has attracted much criticism, but the questions he raised, the topics he addressed, and the positions he took have become central features of today's intellectual landscape."

Clearly, Foucault's name is functioning here as one which bears much power due to the loftiness of his designation as "most influential European writer." The use of his name bears authority, the type of authority that would not be so readily attributed to a lesser-known or less highly regarded author. The way his name functions in relation to literature is much different than the way Stephen King's name functions in relation to literature. Additionally, though the Norton Anthology designates some of his work as "unclassifiable" (suggesting that the way that authorship functions in our society necessitates the classification of an author's work), it is interesting to note that these "unclassifiable" pieces are still considered part of the main body of his intellectual work. Foucault the person has no say in the way that his name functions or the way in which his work is characterized.