„Gdyby chłopi mieli swojego Plutarcha Pierre Riviere znalazłby się wśród sławnych mężów”. Michel Foucault — emocje i historiografia

Abstrakt

The author of the article examines the methods for the analysis of written sources used by Michel Foucault in the case study of the matricide, Pierre Rivière, a French peasant living in the nineteenth century. By studying murderer’s diary—a very emotional, complicated story—and by examining the files of the Rivière’s case, Foucault attempts to reconstruct the mechanisms of behaviour of participants of the family drama, the social norms, to bring their authentic feelings from the conventions of discourse. Is it at all possible? The author of this article shall discuss the way to decoding the source proposed by Foucault, asking the question about the place of emotions in historical research.