Is there really anyone alive today who does not believe in the complexity of
language?  I, for one, genuinely LIKE Foucault.  I like his writing, and
more importantly, I like his research questions.
"To overcome the inertia of the intellect, a new statement must be an
overstatement, and sometimes it is more important that the statement be
interesting than that it be true."  George C. Homans 1950

ALL authors and researchers have their drawbacks.  Foucault doesn't provide
enough references to make me happy.  Then again, neither did Jim Deetz in
_In Small Things Forgotten_ and I LOVE that book.  I wonder if it has been
translated into French? Probably.

Kudos to J. Cameron Monroe for bringing up the Statistics example.  Perhaps
someone with a command of crystal clear language could explain what some
basic words mean in the English-language academic tradition of historical
archaeology: simple, easy words like culture, ethnicity, and race.  If we
could only convince everyone to use simple, understandable terms like these,
academia would be much happier place.  (written with gobs of e-sarcasm)

Besides, anyone who has to ask what "f*ck" has to do with Foucault
wasn't really paying attention. ;)

I have to go, my p-values are tired.
Tim
----------------------------------
Timothy Scarlett
University of Nevada, Reno
Department of Anthropology / 096
Reno, NV 89557-0096
work (775) 784-4417, home (775) 746-0916, fax (775) 327-2226
[log in to unmask]
----------------------------------
I hate emoticons, but all email is so dry that I have to use them so people
don't take me overly seriously... :)
----------------------------------