Michel Foucault, “Structuralism and Literary Analysis,” trans. Jonathan Schroeder and Suzanne Taylor, Critical Inquiry 45, no. 2 (Winter 2019): 531–44.
In 1968, after moving to Tunisia, Michel Foucault radically redefined his methodology (not to mention shaving his head for the first time), moving away from the historical description and analysis of linguistic relations (“archaeology”) to a new focus on the relationship between linguistic and extralinguistic elements (“genealogy”), which is to say the material effects of institutions on discourses of knowledge. “Structuralism and Literary Analysis” is one of the two most important lectures that Foucault gave during this period, and represents one of his most sustained statements on the importance of structuralist methods to his work and scholars of his generation. This translation represents the first version of the lecture to appear in either French or English.