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i'm teaching michel foucault's "panopticism" right now. today was the first day of class discussion about it, actually. here's my horoscope for today:
They say that children need discipline in order to be happy and healthy -- and grownups need rules in their lives, too! You won't be able to look to anyone else for the guidelines or the positive reinforcement you're looking for right now -- you will have to give yourself the discipline you need. You know what the right choice is, so force yourself to make it. If you let yourself off the hook this time, you will probably regret it (or at least feel guilty for a long time).
for those of you who have read foucault's essay, 'nuff said. weird coincidence, huh? for those of you who haven't, it's about the rise of the disciplinary society, in which members discipline themselves. the essay marks a historical shift from an era in which the sovereign did a lot of sword-rattling and public punishment in order to establish and maintain order, to an era in which surveillance by diffuse state apparatuses (like the police or the school or the hospital, all modeled after jeremy bentham's panopticon plan for the ideal prison) makes everyone internalize "proper conduct" and act as if they are being watched at all times, thus order seems to establish and maintain itself (though actually individualized subjects are producing and maintaining order).
jeeeeeeeez........
They say that children need discipline in order to be happy and healthy -- and grownups need rules in their lives, too! You won't be able to look to anyone else for the guidelines or the positive reinforcement you're looking for right now -- you will have to give yourself the discipline you need. You know what the right choice is, so force yourself to make it. If you let yourself off the hook this time, you will probably regret it (or at least feel guilty for a long time).
for those of you who have read foucault's essay, 'nuff said. weird coincidence, huh? for those of you who haven't, it's about the rise of the disciplinary society, in which members discipline themselves. the essay marks a historical shift from an era in which the sovereign did a lot of sword-rattling and public punishment in order to establish and maintain order, to an era in which surveillance by diffuse state apparatuses (like the police or the school or the hospital, all modeled after jeremy bentham's panopticon plan for the ideal prison) makes everyone internalize "proper conduct" and act as if they are being watched at all times, thus order seems to establish and maintain itself (though actually individualized subjects are producing and maintaining order).
jeeeeeeeez........
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Date: 2007-04-10 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 01:24 am (UTC)i just googled "bartky." i had never heard of her before, though i have heard of a few of the publications she appears in (according to her UIC blurb). i've been meaning to get foucault and feminism: paths of resistance from the library, but haven't gotten around to it yet. (she apparently has an essay in that.) the book she wrote (femininity and domination: studies in the phenomenology of oppression) sounds interesting too.
thanks for dropping a line about her. oh, and very nice work on the 48-hour film project too! i enjoyed both versions, though i liked the director's cut better--it has better continuity and it's funnier.
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Date: 2007-04-10 01:33 am (UTC)