...Do we now live in a ‘panoptic’ society? Discuss through the ideas of Michel Foucault. This essay will examine French social theorist Michel Foucault’s (1926-1984), concept of Panopticism. It will give an example of the way it can be observed, through contemporary society. Firstly, it will cover a general aspect of Foucault’s work, regarding his historical method and his understanding of madness, power, knowledge and the body. It will discuss the idea of the Panopticon and how it shaped the idea of discipline and power. Furthermore, it will examine one element of Foucault’s theory, and how it could be applied in contemporary society, through the subject of security in public places. Foucault’s 1964 work Madness and Civilisation, studied the evolution of madness from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, showing the evolving change of how madness was perceived over time in society. During the time of the Renaissance, Foucault found that people who were ‘mad’ were seen as liberated (Foucault 1967). However, the classical age in the seventeenth century created ‘enormous houses of confinement’ which reduced madness to silence (Foucault 1967:35). The mid seventeenth century saw madness associated with confinement. These institutions housed people who were poor, unemployed, prisoners and insane. In 1656, the ‘Hôpital Général’ was founded in Paris and could be seen from the start, that it was not a ‘medical establishment’, but rather a sort of ‘semi-judicial structure’ (Foucault...
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...Reading” by Bartholomae, Petrosky, and Waite, panopticism in Foucault’s paper is the all Seeing Eye. He starts his essay of by talking about the plague in the seventeenth century. There was a closing of the town and its outer lying districts. Each street was placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance. Each house was watched over by the syndic who would come to lock each door from the outside of the house. Everyone was quarantined into their homes. The severity of this lack of freedom was expressed in Foucault’s essay when he said inspection functions ceaselessly. The gaze is alert everywhere, and a considerable body of militia, commanded by good officers and men of substance, guards everyone, everywhere, to prompt the obedience of the people. Foucault discussed the rise of lepers, which also gave rise to disciplinary projects. Rather than separating people into groups, like they did during the plague, multiple distinctions were used to separate people. The plague-stricken town was, as Foucault states, traversed throughout the hierarchy, surveillance, writing, the town immobilized by the functions of extensive power. In order to have the perfect disciplinary functioning, one would put themselves in the place of the syndic during the plague. This control over people functioned to cut them off from all contact with each other. According to the reading, Foucault talked about the Panopticon, a building that was separated into cells. There were two windows...
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...cameras hidden watching you, without even noticing. At shopping malls, there are hidden cameras. The reason why they exist is simple: to prevent shopliftings, or in some cases, to catch shoplifters. Most customers realize that they are being watched and try to act properly, though there are some who fail to recognize or decide to ignore this fact and take the wrong path. It is not just shopping malls that have surveillance watching over people. Even when you’re driving on the street there is a hidden camera somewhere watching you to make sure you run a red light. Foucault starts Panopticism with a talk on the plague. After the explanatory introduction, Foucault presents an analysis of the prison system created by a famous economist Betham, Panopticon Readers could perceive a different conclusion as to what Panopticism is. According to my point of view Panopticism is the idea that schools are similar to prisons, and it is emphasized as well as stated throughout in the reading multiple times. The text gives a variety of examples to help the readers understand as well as analyze what the author is trying to portray. I concur with most of the ideas displayed in the text. Schools are similar to prisons due to the fact that individuals waiting for an education sit there for hours, enclosed within four walls, watched by supervisor in this case a professor. “Each individual in his place is securely confined to a cell from which he is seen from the front by the supervisor, but the side...
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...There is No Such Thing as a Power Shortage In his essay “Panopticism”, Michel Foucault interprets the power-dynamics ingrained in the structure of the panopticon, a self-disciplining prison built by Jeremy Bentham in the nineteenth century. Foucault investigates the functions of the panopticon and realizes that it provides the framework for many aspects of modern society. However, “ panopticism has received little attention” because its utility has been greatly diffused in the lives, to the point where its functions are not readily recognized, of every individual (Foucault 234). Foucault writes his essay in 1975, describing ways that his theory of panopticism is present within past centuries and can be directly connected with society during his time. Almost thirty-five years later, the advances in society have increased leading to greater technology such as, portable computers, cell phones, and the Internet. These developments were beyond the initial scope of Foucault, yet panopticism’s function to construct individuals effectively is endless and timeless. In modern society, there is a booming population of people of all ages utilizing social networking sites including Facebook. Although individuals on Facebook may not advertently realize the presence of panopticism, they are in fact conditioned in its function as both the observer and the observed. The panopticon is an architecturally unique prison that severs the function of a machine. In the center of the building there...
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...Does Disciplinary Power enforce good or bad behaviour from students in York University Accommodation? Introduction When looking at Foucault’s concept of disciplinary power, we looked at our own expectations compared with our actual experiences of living in university run accommodation. With most students coming to university, it is the first time that they will live on ‘their own’, without the rules and restrictions that they had when living at home with their parents, therefore a degree of freedom and independence was expected. However, we noticed that our actions were restricted by the rules imposed on us due to the acceptance of the university run accommodation. From our own experiences, we witnessed students displaying bad behavioural characteristics through resistance. This led our group to investigate the impact that the rules have on students’ behaviours and the universities use of disciplinary power to ‘control’ students’ behaviour. We also wanted to determine from the student’s perspective, the impact these controls had on their behaviour. Methodology There has been a lot of research conducted to study the behaviours of students and their resistance to authority, however they were not written in the students’ perspective. By investigating the behaviours of students from their perspective, it allows us to have a more accurate account of their experiences and the impact that the university’s restrictions has on them. It also enables us to determine why students either...
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...Empowerment and Community Planning Chapter 1 Theories of Power A Survey Towards the Development of a Theory of Power Before beginning the discussion of empowerment and the development of a theory connected with it, I want to deal with a concept that is prior to empowerment—power. Power is a key concept for an understanding of processes of empowerment. The theory of empowerment that will be developed further on will draw its inspiration from an integration of two domains: from an understanding of theories of power and the use of insights drawn from these for the purposes of developing a theory of empowerment, and from an analysis of processes of empowerment. Hence, this deeper study of it will also make possible a better understanding of states of powerlessness, practices of disempowerment, and processes by which people and communities struggle for control over their lives and environments. A Brief History of Theories of Power This chapter makes no pretension to survey all the existing literature in the field of the theories of power. It begins with a historical survey of thought about power in the social sciences, relating only to the most prominent theories. Further on, a number of theories that contain elements suitable to the development of a theory of empowerment are presented in more detail. Modern thinking about power begins in the writings of Nicollò Machiavelli (The Prince, early 16th century) and Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, mid-17th century). Their books are...
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...in-‘we’ being our innate selves, our souls- denies society the view beneath the skin. The only indication of our identity, as Heyes implies, is through the visual self. This is supported by Thesander’s (1997) assertion that “the most characteristic aspect of fashion is its ability to transform objects into symbols. Clothes are transformed into fashion garments and the body becomes the fashion body.” (67) In this essay, I will discuss, using various readings, about how women’s bodies are moulded by society and how it shifts with the current ideals of beauty. I will also elaborate on how the body is used as a shell to depict what the inside holds, in other words, the identity of the being residing in it. I will use Michel Foucault’s theories to explain how the body is affected by the subjection of discipline and examination. Then, I will use the concept of cosmetic surgery to show how the body is an ongoing project to be worked on, and how its participants employ it as a tool to improve their image, thus their perception of self-identity. The first part of this essay discusses how bodies existing within societies are obliged to conform to social expectations. While being a surface upon which the text of one’s identity is read, it is also obliged to live up to the archetype of beauty, therefore, it is a...
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...® Acodemy of Management Heview 1993, Vol. 18, No. 3. 518-545. FOUCAULT. POWER/KNOWLEDGE. AND ITS RELEVANCE FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT BARBARA TOWNLEY The University of Alberta Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault. I argue that human resource management (HRM) may be best understood as a discourse and set of practices that attempt to reduce the indeterminacy involved in the employment contract. Here I reread HRM practices from a Foucauldian power-knowledge perspective and suggest that this provides an avenue to reorient contemporary, historical, and comparative analyses of the area. A glimpse at human resource management (HRM) texts would seem to give light to a comment by Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Mills, and Walton (1984) that HRM is a series of seemingly disjointed activities. This notion echoes an earlier view of Baldamus (1961: 347) that what is encompassed by HRM's subject matter is "anything from supervision, incentives and profit sharing to machine-paced production, methods of training and employee selection." Often this heterogeneity is excused in terms of HRM's reflecting the ad hoc and reactive nature of its origins (Jacoby, 1985; Niven, 1967; Ozanne, 1967). What the heterogeneity of HRM highlights, however, is the importance of an organizing principle, or analytical focus, as opposed to common sense description, which gives HRM practices a theoretical coherence. HRM's heterogeneity stresses the importance of an order "that turns a set of bits, which have limited...
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...STUDENTS’ CONSTRUCTION OF THE BODY IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Kinesiology by Laura Azzarito B.S., Universita’ di Scienze Motorie di Torino, Italy, 1994 M.S., University of Maryland, College Park, 2000 December 2004 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’m very grateful to all the students and teachers who are the subjects of this work. I greatly appreciate their willingness to participate in this research and the time they dedicated to all of the interviews and member checks. I also thank the principals who gave me permission to conduct this study. I especially acknowledge and thank physical education teachers Celeste Alfred, for welcoming me to her school, and Vickie Braud for her great help in making contacts necessary to complete my data collection. Both Vickie and Celeste were wonderful throughout my research process, helping me to observe classes and arrange student interviews at the schools. I greatly appreciate all the suggestions, insights and comments of my committee members. Thank you to all of them: Dr. Kuttruff, my external committee member, for her interest in following the steps of my dissertation; Dr. Magill, for bringing a very challenging and valuable perspective to my research; Dr. Lee, for her deep knowledge and expertise in the field of physical education;...
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...Beginning theory An introduction to literary and cultural theory Second edition Peter Barry © Peter Barry 1995, 2002 ISBN: 0719062683 Contents Acknowledgements - page x Preface to the second edition - xii Introduction - 1 About this book - 1 Approaching theory - 6 Slop and think: reviewing your study of literature to date - 8 My own 'stock-taking' - 9 1 Theory before 'theory' - liberal humanism - 11 The history of English studies - 11 Stop and think - 11 Ten tenets of liberal humanism - 16 Literary theorising from Aristotle to Leavis some key moments - 21 Liberal humanism in practice - 31 The transition to 'theory' - 32 Some recurrent ideas in critical theory - 34 Selected reading - 36 2 Structuralism - 39 Structuralist chickens and liberal humanist eggs Signs of the fathers - Saussure - 41 Stop and think - 45 The scope of structuralism - 46 What structuralist critics do - 49 Structuralist criticism: examples - 50 Stop and think - 53 Stop and think - 55 39 Stop and think - 57 Selected reading - 60 3 Post-structuralism and deconstruction - 61 Some theoretical differences between structuralism and post-structuralism - 61 Post-structuralism - life on a decentred planet - 65 Stop and think - 68 Structuralism and post-structuralism - some practical differences - 70 What post-structuralist critics do - 73 Deconstruction: an example - 73 Selected reading - 79 4 Postmodernism - 81 What is postmodernism? What was modernism? -...
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.... ReseaRching and WRiting a disseRtation a guidebook foR business students Colin Fisher second edition . Researching and Writing a Dissertation: A Guidebook for Business Students . We work with leading authors to develop the strongest educational materials in management, bringing cutting-edge thinking and best learning practice to a global market. Under a range of well-known imprints, including Financial Times Prentice Hall, we craft high-quality print and electronic publications which help readers to understand and apply their content, whether studying or at work. To find out more about the complete range of our publishing, please visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk . Researching and Writing a Dissertation: A Guidebook for Business Students Second edition Colin Fisher with John Buglear Diannah Lowry Alistair Mutch Carole Tansley . Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk First published 2004 Second edition 2007 © Pearson Education Limited 2004 © Pearson Education Limited 2007 The right of Colin Fisher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical...
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.... Organization Theory Challenges and Perspectives John McAuley, Joanne Duberley and Phil Johnson . This book is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive and reliable guide to organisational theory currently available. What is needed is a text that will give a good idea of the breadth and complexity of this important subject, and this is precisely what McAuley, Duberley and Johnson have provided. They have done some sterling service in bringing together the very diverse strands of work that today qualify as constituting the subject of organisational theory. Whilst their writing is accessible and engaging, their approach is scholarly and serious. It is so easy for students (and indeed others who should know better) to trivialize this very problematic and challenging subject. This is not the case with the present book. This is a book that deserves to achieve a wide readership. Professor Stephen Ackroyd, Lancaster University, UK This new textbook usefully situates organization theory within the scholarly debates on modernism and postmodernism, and provides an advanced introduction to the heterogeneous study of organizations, including chapters on phenomenology, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Like all good textbooks, the book is accessible, well researched and readers are encouraged to view chapters as a starting point for getting to grips with the field of organization theory. Dr Martin Brigham, Lancaster University, UK McAuley et al. provide a highly readable account...
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...IGOROTS * Home * IGOROT SONGS * IGOROT DANCE * IGOROT TRADITIONS * MONEY ON THE MOUNTAIN IGOROT TRADITIONS IGOROT TRADITIONS When we talk about Igorot identity and culture, we also have to consider the time. My point is that: what I am going to share in this article concerning the Igorot culture might not be the same practiced by the Igorots of today. It has made variations by the passing of time, which is also normally happening to many other cultures, but the main core of respect and reverence to ancestors and to those who had just passed is still there. The Igorot culture that I like to share is about our practices and beliefs during the "time of Death". Death is part of the cycle of life. Igorots practice this part of life cycle with a great meaning and importance. Before the advent of Christianity in the Igorotlandia, the Igorots or the people of the Cordilleran region in the Philippines were animist or pagans. Our reverence or the importance of giving honor to our ancestors is a part of our daily activities. We consider our ancestors still to be with us, only that they exist in another world or dimension. Whenever we have some special feasts (e.g., occasions during death, wedding, family gathering, etc.), when we undertake something special (like going somewhere to look for a job or during thanksgiving), we perform some special offer. We call this "Menpalti/ Menkanyaw", an act of butchering and offering animals. During these times we call them...
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...A618C90F-C2C6-4FD6-BDDB-9D35FE504CB3 First American paperback edition published in 2006 by Enchanted Lion Books, 45 Main Street, Suite 519, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Copyright © 2002 Philip Stokes/Arcturus Publishing Limted 26/27 Bickels Yard, 151-153 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3HA Glossary © 2003 Enchanted Lion Books All Rights Reserved. The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier hardcover edtion of this title for which a CIP record is on file. ISBN-13: 978-1-59270-046-2 ISBN-10: 1-59270-046-2 Printed in China Edited by Paul Whittle Cover and book design by Alex Ingr A618C90F-C2C6-4FD6-BDDB-9D35FE504CB3 Philip Stokes A618C90F-C2C6-4FD6-BDDB-9D35FE504CB3 ENCHANTED LION BOOKS New York Contents The Presocratics Thales of Miletus . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Pythagoras of Samos . . . . . 10 Xenophanes of Colophon 12 Heraclitus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Scholastics St Anselm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 St Thomas Aquinas . . . . . . . 50 John Duns Scotus . . . . . . . . . 52 William of Occam . . . . . . . . . 54 The Liberals Adam Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Mary Wollstonecraft . . . . 108 Thomas Paine . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Jeremy Bentham . . . . . . . . . 112 John Stuart Mill . . . . . . . . . . 114 Auguste Comte . . . . . . . . . . . 116 The Eleatics Parmenides of Elea . . . . . . . 16 Zeno of Elea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The Age of Science Nicolaus Copernicus . . . . . . 56 Niccolò Machiavelli...
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