Critical Productions of Discourse: Angenot, Bakhtin, Foucault

This paper correlates Marc Angenot's theory of social discourse to the transgredient notions of the dialogical in Mikhail Bakhtin, and of governmentality in Michel Foucault. Together these three concepts allow a close investigation of the material/textual production of hegemonic truths, as well as an exploration of the means of transforming such truths and elaborating new forms of subjectivity and agency. Angenot, Bakhtin, and Foucault deploy the concept of discourse differently, yet their texts variously attribute a crucial role to fiction in the cultural production of knowledge and power relations. Together, their historical analyses set forth an eminently pertinent set of theoretical and methodological tools for contemporary cultural studies.