From Ancient to Victorian Cultural Studies: Assessing Foucault

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

In 1999 the journal Victorian Literature and Culture devoted a special issue to the subject of "Victorian Studies and Cultural Studies." What is notable about the essays included in this volume is the collective level of skepticism they express about the way cultural studies concepts and practices have recently been applied. 1 Isobel Armstrong, for example, faults "Foucaultian history" for its over-reliance upon limiting notions of "regulation and surveillance. . . . [so that] [e]very text becomes evidence of a form of regulation, demonstrating a panoptical motivation." Foucauldian readings, Armstrong claims, depend as a result on "a homogenized account of the nineteenth century and of Victorianism in particular." 2 Armstrong is concerned about the way tendentious concepts such as "disciplinary" power are assumed by Foucault's followers prior to any analysis, which crowds out the opportunity for a more open, less predetermined form of historical-critical practice.