Working through the Author-Function

My experience reading Foucult was even more turbulent than my reading of Aristotle’s On Rhetoric. As a result, I’d like to use this blog to re-explain Foucoult’s ideas on the functions of an author’s name in my own words. I also apologize for the length of this. I wrote it on paper initially, and I didn't realize how long it was. 

First of all, in class, we asked, “What does it mean [for an author] to be born simultaneously with the text?”  To my understanding, we answered the question with the following:

An author’s name does not refer back to the man or individual who wrote the work. Shakespeare’s name does not merely refer back to the individual who wrote Twelfth Night. Instead, it represents a mode of being that may servs to categorize and situate texts within a discourse (907).

Initially, I was confused about what Foucult meant by “mode of being.” To clarify this for myself, I took a genre of web comics I was familiar with and applied Foucult’s concepts. I’m also not entirely certain on the accuracy of the following example, but it did help me to understand the concept more clearly. For instance, not all online comics that use the same format as Homestuck includes “stuck” in the name.

There’s an online comic called Homestuck with a narrative that is set up to mimic “text-based adventure games” (MSPAINT ADVENTURES). Certain comics’ narratives on the website depend largely on what the readership suggests to the author, whereas the current comic, Homestuck, merely provides the illusion that readers have agency over the story’s main plot (they do influence the story in smaller ways such as providing names for characters).

A myriad of online comics using this same structure (an imitation of a text-based adventure game) have sprung up online since Homestuck’s conception. Some of these comics use the same characters as Homestuck, while others simply share a similar structure. Many of these comics have names such as “Carnivalstuck”, “Humanstuck”, “UniversityStuck”, etc.  The “stuck” in their names refers back to the title of “Homestuck.” In the same way the word “Shakespearan” might refer to a work that includes a play within a play (like Midsummer’s Night Dream),  “stuck” refers to online comics that mimic text-based adventure games (like Homestuck). “Homestuck” has become an epithet for comics modeled after text-based games. It has transcended beyond a name referring back to an individual comic. Now, it refers to the way (“the mode of being”) in which several online comics relate and thus form a discourse.

To further my point, let’s look at another example:

Person A: What kind of comic is that?
Person B: It’s “The Best Comic Ever.” It’s a Homestuck comic.

Foucult explains that this type of author-named discourse is “not something that is immediately consumable. On the contrary, it is a speech that must be received in certain mode and that, in a given culture, must receive a certain status” (907). By describing “The Best Comic Ever” as a “Homestuck” comic, Person B is distinguishing it from other types of online comics. The name “Homestuck” is “breaking” it away from other online comic genres and categorizing as its own distinct discourse.

In order  to consume “The Best Comic Ever”, Person A must be familiar with “the mode of being” the epithet “Homestuck” suggests. If Person A has never heard of “Homestuck”, she will not be able to look at the comic as being different than any other online comic, but the difference (the mode that defines the discourse) must be understood in order to get the most out of the text. The name becomes a tool to maximize the reading experience. The origin, too, of the name may not have been the first piece to employ a particular mode, but for whatever reason, its name became the agent that collected the comics (already functioning under the same mode) into a discourse. 

The author-name concept also reminded me of a poisonous lizard with bright skin. His skin warns predators not to eat him because he’s poisonous. His skin says, “You can eat me, but you’ll probably die.” The author’s name says, “You can read me, but if you’re not familiar with the mode of being that the name suggests, you probably won’t be able to understand the piece.” The name is a warning sign.

I talked about an online comic. Have you ever seen the author-function show up in places other than literature?