The subversion of intellect in the politics of African American resistance
Abstract
Michel Foucault argues that discourse informs the speaking subject and that knowledge, as power, is a political source of domination. This represents a paradox for African-Americans who are imperialized by dominant cultural domains of power/knowledge. Even in speaking out against the effects of domination and exclusion, immutable ideas which have heretofore sustained marginalization, remain prominent in resistance strategies. African American resistance discourse, therefore, inaugurates a unified subject and not counterhegemonic resistant practices. Support for these conclusions is provided in a lengthy analysis of modern discourse and the cognitive presumptions under which humanity is first experienced. We find that the human subject renders its own reality (rationality) based on an internal reflexive gaze ascribing conceptual homogeneity to social reality. We attempt to show the influence of dominant governing principles, discursive practices, metaphysical interpretations in shaping African American resistance discourse. This project delineates the analytics of power which silence the "subaltern voice." In chapter one this problem is addressed by first answering the question, "In modern society how does power operate on the social body?" Key terms such as discourse, discursive formations, power, domination, subjection, surveillance, strategies, knowledge, exclusion, and resistance will be analyzed for their relationship with the metaphysics of central organizing principles in Western discourse. Chapter two surveys resistance literature. Instead the survey will supply the substantive resources in unearthing the rules (discursive practices) which structure these discourses. The next step is to implant these discourses in concrete practices. Therefore chapter three is a case study of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, where the intent is to illuminate the institutional and cultural practices, specific events, and sites which condition their discourses. Foucault's analytics is valuable here as a tool to investigate the prominence of countervailing systems of domination. The conclusion suggests that through a positive conditioning elements of the subaltern may be communicating various discourse agreements which signify a fictive interpretation of their subaltern self, while simultaneously erecting the purity of Western consciousness.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Weinstein, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Political science|Black history
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