Discourse Analysis and Historiography: Prolegomena to an Archaeology of Archaeology

Abstract

Without mentioning the name of French philosopher Michel Foucault – and therefore following an anti-biographic perspective – this article tries to reveal some discursive layers of his »Archaeology of Knowledge«. Especially the introduction to this masterpiece of modern historiography allows an in-depth discussion of the Annales School and Structuralism as archives of discourse analysis. In reference to – for example – Marc Bloch, Paul Veyne, Claude Lévi-Strauss or Jacques Lacan the intersecting lines of history and language in 20th century are sketched as an epistemological background of Foucault’s project. A project, which only partially was accepted by the mainstream of historians and hence did not loose its interdisciplinary complexity and its actuality since the publication in 1969. In this way – and as a contribution to historical media science – the necessity of circular historical analysis is pointed out.