Discussion of Hodge's 'Rethinking time's arrow' and Colwell's 'Deleuze and Foucault'

Hi guys,

Well I should begin by saying that I’m quite excited about our 'Deluesian turn' which we now seem to be embarking upon.  Both these articles, I feel, clearly display the benefits Deleuze can provide to our discussions of time, temporality and history, and our formulation of genealogy more specifically.  Taken together these two articles provide a solid foundation for analyzing the specific temporality exercised by genealogy, which should allow us to probe more deeply the critical contribution of this method.

I'd like to begin by discussing Hodge’s article.  Clearly, the article provides for our project a rich framework and vocabury for discussing issues of time and temporality.  That being said however, I found the overall objective of this paper to be somewhat suspect.  The way I understood it, the author is seeking develop an understanding of ‘flux’ as an ontological ground for experience’s of time in the least ‘culturally inflected’, and I would suspect by this ‘objective’, manner possible.  Dismissing approaches informed by both analytic philosophy and phenomenology within Anthropology, the author comes to the conclusion that a ‘distaff’ approach, as outlined by Bergson and further developed by Deleuze, provides the best definition of ‘flux’ (as ‘la durée’) upon which culturally and historically specific experiences of time can be articulated.  I am sceptical however that an objective or ‘less culturally inflected’ ontological ground (even in the reduced sense of la durée) can be located and spoken of.  Such a project, it would seem, would entail stepping outside of discourse to describe the reality of some ‘pure’ noumenal form of time (a charge not unlike that levelled previously on theories of ‘affect’ by Andrew and Philippe).  Isn’t, in fact, even the concept of la durée both culturally and historically specific? As good Foucaultian’s then, I would understand our task to be not the uncovering of an ontological basis for experiences of time (a security project in itself no doubt!), but to describe the singularity of historically contingent a priori.

I suppose in this respect I find something worth preserving in Munn’s (phenomenology-inspired) approach which looks to develop a methodology for analyzing temporality without regard for an ontological ground in ‘flux’.  Such an approach would have to proceed with caution however.  Indeed, and as the author rightfully points out, the phenomenological approach developed by Munn leads to a number of problems—not least of which is locating either the subject or, even more problematically, the ‘social’ as a site responsible for the constitution of temporal experience.   I wonder, however, if this wasn’t what Foucault was looking to overcome by shifting analysis from the subject/social and onto dispositif(s)? What happens if we begin our analysis with the temporalities presupposed and performed by the various components which comprise the dispositif(s) and then ask about their effects on experiences of temporality?

Dispositif, as we have discussed previously, are integral to processes of subjectification.  I would assume therefore, that experiences of temporality can be grounded in how temporality is expressed within the various components (discourses, technologies, architectures, etc.) comprising the assemblage of the dispositif.  However, dispositif, as we have also discussed, are thoroughly heterogeneous in character.  If we take, for example, just some of the technologies operating within the contemporary security dispositif we find technologies of preparedness and anticipation--which operate according to temporalities of radically contingent futures--operating alongside, and in many cases are dependent for their functioning, upon technologies of law and (actuarial-based) insurance--which operate according to conservative temporalities which posit futures based on extrapolations from the past.  These multiple technologies, expressing divergent temporalities, would suggest that the temporal experience of a subject is always underdetermined, and never final, which would in turn discourage broad claims from us, as analysts, of a universal experience of temporality for a subject or society (a claim which Andrew was right to check me on in my previous post).  Instead of seeking to explicate the temporal experience itself, we could instead inquire into the effects that evolutionary trends in the composition of dispositif have on the ways in which temporality is experienced by the subject.  I’m thinking here, as an example, of Brian Rotman’s recent book Becoming Beside Ourselves which investigates the impact that the proliferation of digital technologies have had on human subjectivity, including experiences of temporality.

Finally, thinking about the temporalities embedded within specific technologies and practices should encourage us in turn to reflect upon the specific temporality operationalized by genealogy (which is of course itself a historically-contingent practice). Here Colwell’s article ‘Deleuze and Foucault: Series, Event, Genealogy’ offers a very persuasive argument that genealogy operationalizes a Deleuzian understanding of time and temporality. In particular, I really like the way in which Colwell describes genealogy as a counter-actualization of the meaning given to (historical) events.  Thinking about the temporality expressed by genealogy helps us therefore to understand its strategic function.  It should also however press us to ask about its limits.  I’m not suggesting here that genealogy is in any way becoming redundant, however I do wonder what happens to genealogy when the temporality it operates in accordance with (if this is in fact Deleuzian) is shared with many of the technologies which it seeks to investigate (all those anticipatory and preemptive technologies which assume complex, non-linear and thus radically contingent futures)?  Does genealogy lose something when the past is increasingly no longer considered a repository of lessons learned for dealing with future threats?  Am I being wholly overdramatic?

Ok, lots more to say on this, but I have some last minute xmas shopping to attend to.  As always, looking forward to your responses and hoping you the happiest of holidays!

Chris