...is it compulsory to attempt to respond to all of them; they are just ideas to help you get started). You might also find it helpful to have another look at Prouty’s ‘Turtle on a Leash’ set reading as an example of good critical blog post. Blog Focus Questions * Describe the new virtual network you joined (last week). * Explain your persona for your new network – have you kept your own identity or changed it? Why? * Analyse your experience of ‘travelling’ in your virtual network. Do you experience more or less freedom than when travelling in physical space? * Does your experience of your virtual space empower or disempower you, or both? (See week 2 set readings and Barnes’ reading for week 3 on the voyeur and the panopticon). In-text Referencing When you cite (acknowledge) references in the text of your blog you should include the surname(s) of the author or authors; year of publication; and page numbers if appropriate. Include page numbers...
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...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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...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 corresponding to the window of the tower that was in the center. There was a supervisor placed in the tower to watch over the mad men in each cell. What the inmates could see was limited, while the supervisor in the tower could see everything. The major effect of the panoptical, according to Foucault, was to induce the inmate into the state of consciousness...
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...Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon Design Two models A penitentiary had purposes to be both secular and spiritual. Instead of a penitentiary being all about physical punishment, it was supposed to be a place of humane punishment for wrong doers. Instead of prisoners being bunched together, the true penitentiary was meant to have them separated from each other to avoid contamination of the body and spirit. I personally think that a penitentiary should be more like a place to make an inmate know that they did wrong by breaking the law. The first model was called the Pennsylvania system. It was based on the idea of "separate and silent." The state of Pennsylvania built two big prisons, one in Philadelphia and another in Pittsburgh. These were known as Eastern Penitentiary and Western Penitentiary, respectively. Eastern Penitentiary was operational from 1829 to 1971, and there are some good photos and videos of it at http://www.easternstate.org/explore/flickr, and the Wikipedia article on it is pretty good. Western was a poor imitation of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon design (explained shortly), and Eastern better characterized the model as consisting of large cells that faced outside so each inmate would have a small amount of outdoor space or footage. Inmates could exercise in their own cells, have their meals delivered, and never come in contact with another inmate. If they wanted to plant a garden in their outdoor patio, they could. If they wanted to engage in handicraft...
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...The History of the Penitentiary from 1776-Present Lezlie M. Lucas CJA/234 January 6, 2011 Christopher Dericco The Penitentiary in England and Wales The phrase prison is used when relating to the penitentiaries used to imprison criminal persons. Originating in England and Wales during the eighteenth century was the drive for penitentiaries as an alternative for penal compounds. Set into motion during this period, the British culture began to shift from physical penalty and in the direction of internment with the optimism of alteration of the mentality and essence. These modifications in due course helped to lead the system for penitentiaries for Europe and throughout the world (Ignatieff, 1978). In 1776 the United States was successful in becoming independent from England, and during this time the British did not have any outpost to incarcerate persons devoid of it costing a vast amount of money. According to Ignatieff (1978), “Henry Fielding thought it was necessary to find an intermediate penalty, combining 'correction of the body' and 'correction of the mind’” (Ignatieff, 1978, p. 45-46). An innovative book published in 1777 by John Howard, "The State of Prisons in England and Wales" (Ignatieff, 1978, p. 46) provided crucial information on the condition of penitentiaries and the inmates confined there. Subsequent to reading his book, society’s attention was changed direction regarding the penalizing circumstance in England. Recognized as the founder...
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...discipline was created. The existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring and supervising abnormal beings brings into play the disciplinary mechanisms created by the fear of the plague. All modern mechanisms for controlling abnormal individuals derive from these. Foucault then discusses Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see each cell in which a prisoner or schoolboy is incarcerated. Visibility is a trap. Each individual is seen but cannot communicate with the warders or other prisoners. The crowd is abolished. The panopticon induces a sense of permanent visibility that ensures the functioning of power. Bentham decreed that power should be visible yet unverifiable. The prisoner can always see the tower but never knows from where he is being observed. The possibility that the panopticon is based on the royal menagerie at Versailles is raised. The Panopticon allows on to do the work of a naturalist: drawing up tables and taxonomies. It is also a laboratory of power, in which experiments are carried out on prisoners and staff. The plague-stricken town and the panopticon represent transformations of the disciplinary programme. The first case is an exceptional situation, where power is mobilized against an extraordinary evil. The second is a generalized model of human functioning, a way of defining...
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...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 is a circular tower...
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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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...Foucault's analysis shows how techniques and institutions, developed for different and often quite innocuous purposes, converged to create the modern system of disciplinary power. At the core of Foucault's picture of modern “disciplinary” society are three primary techniques of control: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and the examination. To a great extent, control over people (power) can be achieved merely by observing them. So, for example, the tiered rows of seats in a stadium not only makes it easy for spectators to see but also for guards or security cameras to scan the audience. A perfect system of observation would allow one “guard” to see everything (a situation approximated, as we shall see, in Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon). But since this is not usually possible, there is a need for “relays” of observers, hierarchically ordered, through whom observed data passes from lower to higher levels. A distinctive feature of modern power (disciplinary control) is its concern with what people have not done (nonobservence), with, that is, a person's failure to reach required standards. This concern illustrates...
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...discipline was created. The existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring and supervising abnormal beings brings into play the disciplinary mechanisms created by the fear of the plague. All modern mechanisms for controlling abnormal individuals derive from these. Foucault then discusses Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see each cell in which a prisoner or schoolboy is incarcerated. Visibility is a trap. Each individual is seen but cannot communicate with the warders or other prisoners. The crowd is abolished. The panopticon induces a sense of permanent visibility that ensures the functioning of power. Bentham decreed that power should be visible yet unverifiable. The prisoner can always see the tower but never knows from where he is being observed. The possibility that the panopticon is based on the royal menagerie at Versailles is raised. The Panopticon allows on to do the work of a naturalist: drawing up tables and taxonomies. It is also a laboratory of power, in which experiments are carried out on prisoners and staff. The plague-stricken town and the panopticon represent transformations of the disciplinary programme. The first case is an exceptional situation, where power is mobilized against an extraordinary evil. The second is a generalized model of human functioning, a way of defining...
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...with their bad decisions. With this kind of security system it makes the job of an investigator easier when we have the action on video. Therefore, sending a higher power signal. We are being watched no matter where we are, in hopes that actions we might be doing will come to a halt. Michel Foucault seeks through his work, “Panopticisim”, to analyze how contemporary society is differently structured from the society that preceded us and to explain the experiments executed on the human mind through panoptic powers. The structure of Panopticon can be applied in any formal setting as a form of discipline and power. Do we comply with these rules to be accepted within society? Some would say that sounds reasonable, a set of universally set rules for everyone to follow in order for society to run in a better manor. After all, one must find their place in society in order to survive. Foucault introduces Jeremy Betham’s architectural realization of the Panopticon, as a prison for society and those who inhabit it. Betham proposed a building with a main purpose that would allow an observer to view prisoners without having the prisoners notice if they are being watched. In the center of the building would be a tower, “ pierced with wide...
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...What changes in the organisation of time, space and discipline are associated with the emergence of modern industrial work? Word Count: 1620 This essay will discuss the changes that occurred in the organisation of time, space and discipline, as a result of the emergence of modern industrial work, whereby society relied upon the use of science, technology and ultimately mechanisation to produce its goods and services. The transition of home based independent work to working for a boss in a factory had many accompanying impacts upon society. Between the years 1300 to 1650, there was a major change in the intellectual culture of Western Europe, towards the apprehension of time (Thompson 1967, p.56). The pre-industrial era was characterized by the organisation work around the four seasons. Work was focused upon the time of year, which would then determine the length of the task and the type of task which would be carried out. Thompson (1967, p.59) suggests there was a disregard for clock time, with focus on the work of Synge; who in his account of the Aran islands states a classic example of this indifference ‘and when I tell them what o’clock it is by my watch they are not satisfied, and ask how long is left them before twilight.’ This suggests during this pre-industrial period, workers were oblivious towards the clock time; rather the time of the day and its proximity to sunset would have a more significant effect in determining their working hours. Although Thompson’s...
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...Foucault and the New Historicism Author(s): Geoffrey Galt Harpham Source: American Literary History, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1991), pp. 360-375 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/490057 . Accessed: 18/10/2011 05:25 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Literary History. http://www.jstor.org the Foucault and New Historicism GeoffreyGait Harpham "People are always shouting they want to create a better future,"Milan Kundera writes in The Book of Laughterand Forgetting."It's not true. The futureis an apatheticvoid of no interestto anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritateus, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The AfterFoucault: HumanisticKnowledge, only reasonpeople want to be mastersof the futureis to change PostmodernChallenges the past"(22). Not only is the historicalrecordlargelyan archive Edited by Jonathan of domination and rebellion...
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...Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French 20th-century historian and philosopher who spent his life closely analyzing and critiquing the power of the modern western capitalist state, including its police, law courts, prisons, doctors and psychiatrists. His goal was to work out nothing less than how power worked and sought to change society’s current functions of these various systems. In Foucault’s, “Society must be defended”, he talks about the power over life and how the government helps to dictate public opinion and societal norms. One of these powers is disciplinary power, which is the normalization of individual bodies. This ideal centers on the fact that the body is like a machine and must be controlled in order to reach maximum efficiency. Disciplinary power is about efficiently and optimized capabilities when talking about the body. An example of this is a diet, someone controlling and regulating their body to reach a particular goal. A person may control what they eat and how often they exercise in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Foucault emphasizes that the way to do this is through surveillance, when someone knows they are being watched or potentially being watched. The whole idea of disciplinary power is set on a micro scale which does not exceed the individual. This whole idea of disciplinary power emphasized the power of the individual and nothing else in the words of Foucault. When dealing with the multiplicity or the masses of men being surveilled is...
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...In the twenty first century, privacy has become an escalating issue. With all of the various information leaked to the public, it is becoming clear that privacy is dwindling since the government is slowly taking control and using new methods to spy on its people. An early concept of this idea was the Panopticon. The Panopticon was a tall tower that could spy on anybody, while the people did not know the identity of those who were spying. In Michel Foucault's article, “Panopticon” from his book, Discipline and Punish, he gives insight to the pervasive nature of the federal government and the outlandish measures they take to perform surveillance. Foucault’s description of the panopticon mirrors the invasive nature of the surveillance methods...
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