But, having been known to criticise Foucault on some counts it was interesting to discover that the instances of self-evident nonsense being provided did not at all demonstrate nonsense so far as I could see.
I was particularly puzzled by the Orientalism bit. Why a discussion of Borges' representation of an imaginary oriental text/culture constitutes orientalism I do not see at all. Also, it's not clear to me why speaking to the context of 'European/Western thought', *and specifically acknowledging that*, constitutes orientalism. But you would say that the 'doubleness' and 'ambiguity' attributed to Iran is 'orientalising' (and of course it doesn't matter to that whether or in what degree F. is using that as a criticism). But employing a concept which resembles Said's description of orientalism isn't enough surely. I don't know this piece on Iran, so I don't know whether what looks in these quotes like discussion of 'Iran' as a culture specifically different from 'his' and having its own institutions etc not neatly mapped onto 'his' is in fact borne out by the piece as a whole. I do know that Foucault's references to Zen, for example, do not bear out this same view -- and if in fact he addresses, always conscious of his own position, what seems to him to be specific in these 'other' cultures, is that actually orientalism, and is that just because it employs the idea of 'doubleness' or because it claims not to understand?
I don't get it. Nor do I get why the other nonsense is nonsense.
Also, how the hell does this kind of discussion of F. consitute a 'bashing' of lit criticism?
Catherine