Rebelling Against Power: Foucault's Discourse Theory Research

Michel Foucault’s discourse theory has always been a hot topic of academic research.On one hand,Foucault connects discourse with power and reveals the inseparable relationship between them.On the other hand,he thinks positively about and looks for the way for the subject to get rid of the power of discourse and realize "the practices of freedom".In this context,this paper studies Foucault’s theory of resistance to discourse power.The introduction part outlines the academic research on Foucault’s discourse theory and summarizes the clear conclusions that have been drawn.Apart from these,this paper gives an overview of the research context,research methodology and innovations of Foucault’s theory of resistance to discourse power.The main body of this paper consists of four parts:Chapter One discusses the process of productivity of power that is provided by discourse.The close relationship between knowledge discourse and representational power,space discourse and disciplinary power,and body discourse and life power are talked about,and the strong relationship between discourse and power is gradually clarified,so as to explore the productivity of discourse power from different perspectives.Chapter Two focuses on Foucault’s "sense of resistance to discourse power",which was in its early stage.Starting from analyzing the characteristics of the discourse power network.the author discusses the characteristics of discourse power in detail,which is a kind of penetration like capillaries.Foucault thus began to conceive a sense of resistance.He agreed with the idea of "partial resistance" and proposed his own strategy.It is such "partiality" that makes his resistance ambiguous,which can be said to be "existent" or "non-existent".Chapter Three mainly talks about Foucault’s subject self-shaping thought which appeared in the later period of his academic career.For Foucault,the focus on the self-shaping of the subject is a new way to resist the power of discourse from all aspects.After eight years of silence in his academic career,he focused his research on the ancient Greek society.Through the exploration of survival aesthetics centering on self-concern,he opened up a way to resist against the power of discourse with morality and ethics.In addition,it is necessary to reflect on Foucault’s theory of resistance to discourse power,and takes a dialectical attitude towards Foucault’s resistance to the power of discourse.Chapter Four is a summmary on Foucault’s theory of resistance to discourse power and its influence.First of all,the author reveals the influence of the contained survival aesthetics on the development of aesthetics.Secondly,the author analyzes the reference role of his theory on the development of literary theory and focuses on its influence on the theory of "cultural studies".Finally,taking the acceptance and innovation of "keyword criticism" in China as an example,the author analyzes the mapping role of Foucault’s theory of resistance to discourse power in the reconstruction of Chinese literary discourse.The conclusion part,based on the above research results and the combination with the analysis of significance and limitations,further explores whether this shift can be regarded as a sign of breaking or continuation between Foucault’s theory in the early and late period,and confirms that Foucault’s theory of resistance to discourse power has certain reference significance in the current "discourse explosion" society.