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LIS Reflection Paper Outline
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1 - Introduction

Like most studies, this one started with a lit review. I went seeking traces and citations of Foucault within the knowledge organization field as a first-year MLIS student and a newcomer to this domain. I found that the majority of Foucauldian LIS scholarship was anchored primarily, often even solely, in his cornerstone work Discipline & Punish. Of course I was enthused to see the nods [cite and summarize], but my heart fell a bit. My favourite work of his, which explicitly addresses taxonomy and classification as historical subjects, was barely cited at all within the field.

I cast my digital net further, and confirmed that since I last studied this book, very little work has been put onto the internet which references it.

  • what led me to create this digital knowledge-object

  • situate the multimedia element of the object and how I tried to challenge myself

  • with what I'd argue is an increasing relevance of Foucault's power-knowledge concept in modern "network societies" h/t Manuel Castells, I intend to bring this, one of Foucault's most distinctive works, into the LIS dialogue

Foucault meme on word count

2 - Cultural Warrant for Digital Remix

Arguments to summarize as mini lit review, in proper order

  • Beghtol on cultural warrant and the need for inclusivity in LIS
  • Digital document design principles - shorter universal attention spans, replicable scanning patterns, massive need for accessibility and universal best practices
  • Meme scholarship- roughly summarize the interdisciplinary offerings as much as possible, and argue that Memelords are an internet subculture, they're transmitting information and ideas in a legitimate and sometimes even superior fashion, and I want to create a knowledge object that honors that and "speaks their language"

3 - If Foucault Dreamed in Memes

Switch to "why Foucault, who Foucault, what Foucault".

First ground Foucault's broader project and accompanying methodologies in a few sentences; archaelogy & genealogy were both attempts at defining a historical lens that would cut deep rather than broad, would seek to analyze discrete events and disruptions rather than attempting to trace consistent lineage.

Where other philosophers of history had often tried to establish a lifeline moving backwards from the present - finding the "how for the now" - Foucault wanted to analyze traces of lesser-tracked (often technically subversive) stories, and use the lens of the distant past to make the present equally strange to us, particularly by illuminating those currents of complex power through which societies set norms and practices (both social and literally embodied).

transition: what are the gaps I envision if the next age of digital scholars don't fall in love with the somewhat daunting 400-page "Order of Things"?

Bringing meme scholarship back around: I'll make the semi-bold argument that the "deep fried" digital remix culture of memes actually has the greatest chance of capturing the subtlety of Foucault's long-form poetics...

For example, one of Foucault's most self-contained pieces of work, "This is Not a Pipe", could be seen as early meme scholarship. I'd argue that from at least Duchamps onward, and particularly once the work of contemporary critical theorists began being actively applied to visual art criticism, a thread of self-conscious meme-like 'trolling' starts to arise on the frontier edge of that art.

transition: bring it back around to LIS domain and inclusivity in our practice: what gaps, if any, can I identify in Foucault's methodology throughout Order of Things (beyond what he himself identifies in the English foreword) in terms of hospitality/cultural warrant? bookmark this for after completing the Bowker & Star and other upcoming LIS readings

4 - Condensing 400 Pages Into Just Twelve Screens

Process Notes

Design Choices

  • starting with open "out loud" workflow on public Github Jekyll pages
  • just-the-docs template for clarity and ease of quick markdown documentation
  • potential stretch goal- implementing in pure HTML/CSS/JS for parallel assignment due for Rick Kopak's class - to be discussed in next Directed Study meeting
  • potential for including the git changelog as a supplementary data document to accompany process notes?

5 - Foucault Fractured and Reframed

  • what were the biggest learning outcomes from trying to translate "The Order of Things" into memes?
  • what do I still feel I don't understand?
  • bring in Poster's "mode of information" framework to tie it all together to the relevance and benefit Foucauldian scholarship can bring to the existing LIS dialogue, especially as we've veered so much more into "fully digital provision"
  • similarly, invoke more Beghtol, Bowker & Star, and other LIS readings to "patch the gaps" in Foucauldian scholarship. Poster highlighted that Foucault came round to the notion of aligning his really participatory lived politics with his till-then less overtly political work in theory near the end of his life. What can LIS teach Foucauldians about inclusivity and cross-cultural warrant?

6 - 1000 Foucaults & Beyond (Call To Action)

  • I want to build this in an extensible, forkable way, so that others can participate directly (

  • Give grounding and rationale for Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike on specific "The Order of Memes" curated content, and MIT license? tbd on code repo for Javascript implementation if pursued

  • Circle back to where memes specifically fit in all of this- let's make a network of tongue-in-cheek knowledge-capturing memes, with somewhat traceable provenance and documentation, at least compared to the haphazard options we have now outside of highly specialized scenarios