anything due weekly is not to be loaded to the in box – if you do nto post it on the blog it gets no credit
everything you write which is not common knowledge needs a footnote
when you write to someone saying what a great idea or what a goofy idea it may be better to send a personal email
http://users.california.com/~rathbone/foucau10.htm
you may find this useful or not….. there is so much foucault info on the web you could drown. just swim laps and remember to breathe
i started this post with the idea of addressing the “I” and foucault’s idea of the self. But after a few pages or attempts i find that I do not know enough to make a clear discussion. And it takes more than a few months to get to the clarity you need- so Foucault believed that discourses bind us to identities and that power enforces them – we can practice freedom but only thru being free. How can we do that??? I think that later in his life his views modified somewhat- not so dark and predetermined.
Here Foucault and I go our separate ways – I want to believe like Gramsic wrote that we can do something with the effects of our personal experience that can neutralize social effects. Self referential power is not only you adsorb what the other says about you and self identify. It is possible to transcend that and even if it cannot be eradicated you can use it in a way that is pro active (hate that word)
Even if we know that the culture created us, and our parents hated us or whatever we can retool our thinking. That is the second half of the class….
Several of you mentioned about Foucault and his religious beliefs. He was raised Catholic and participated in Catholic Action as a youth but basically he was an athiest.
having said that we can see why his idea of the soul is not what we might first think. The soul (here I am using the best words i can find at the moment) is the internal ordering force that you grow to have….because of your culture.
here is something from sparknotes:
The History of the Soul
Foucault’s project in Discipline and Punish is to account for the modern penal system, but he also presents a genealogical account of the modern soul. This is not only due to the fact that the soul gradually replaces the body as the focus of punishment and reform. It is also due to the fact that modern processes of discipline have essentially created that soul. Without the human sciences and the various mechanisms of observation and examination, the normal soul or mind would not exist. Ideas such as the psyche, conscience, and good behavior are effects created by a particular regime of power and knowledge. For Foucault, examining that regime is a way of looking deep into our souls. His history of the soul is also a powerful critique, because it makes us confront what we have become by excluding and marginalizing certain elements of our society.
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/disciplinepunish/themes.html
simplistic but we are not here to discuss the soul and Foucault altho by showing what it is NOT we can see more clearly how he viewed society.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/foucfem.htm
here is an interesting essay on the topic of the body and Foucault’s view of it Foucault’s idea that the body and sexuality are cultural constructs rather than natural phenomena …..What the writer is speaking about here is that the western culturally enforced idea of two sexes (genders) is a construction. The fetus is often hermaphroditic. Sexuality ie how we view Male Female is cultural too. Blue for boys and pink for girls. It is a binary creation. Individuals are often forced into one or the other of the roles that society has delineated. This is what Foucault called bio-power: To be known by your sexual affiliation rather than your intrinsic merit as a human. (notice that straight is not a delineator – ie is not used to separate out- only lesbian bisexual or homosexual. We have no derogatory terms that I can think of for being straight. )Is the physical violation of a homosexual individual less problematic than the violation of a woman ( feminine identified subject)? Ie rape in our culture has gendered meaning because of the social construction of sexuality. The issue is violence to the body- and Foucault was adamantly against that. He did not condone rape or violence. The body of the female is no more or less important than one of any other proclivity or creation. The feminist position as stated in the article is just that – a position with regard to a topic- a discourse,which is supported by what Foucault called discursive strategies – culturally enforced ways of speaking and dealing with a subject.if you google Foucault and the body you can read more about this idea. I hope this short paragraph has done the problem justice. The point of our class is prison but here is a quote from the first Foucault crib sheet
The political significance of the problem of sex is due to the fact that sex is located at the point of intersection of the discipline of the body and the control of the population.
The jc offers half a dozen college skills classes to help people do online classes. These classes relate to the CATE system which is one developed by our own school – not blackboard or other online systems.
They take three weeks and offer half a credit. I only just found out that they offered them!!! It is similar to the library use class.
I want to put Deadman Walking on hold for another week and to the links i prepared about Foucault- Particularly the first one which explains about types of power in society and then gives a few of my favorite Foucault quotes.
What i want you to do is to use the list of forms of power (coercive and non coercive) and give examples say two for each. Try to use your outline of Discipline and Punish as a primary source. However if you can connect these forms of power with other examples please use those as well.
many of you spoke about the panoptican. Where is the panoptican used ie where is it visible. Give two examples. That is what i want to see a sort of fill in the blanks assignment.
Then take the quotes that I have up – there are not too many and write about what they mean – and connect them directly to Disciipline and Punish.
I do not want to leave this material without some sense that each of you has been able to connect the types of power with examples from the text and or your own life.
I will be writing a piece on the first essays as soon as I can (they are read )
and i will publish something about rape and the body.
I will also try to post the material from the face to face – especially if someone helps me remember. When i get to the campus i get caught up in the other three classes and their concerns and sometimes i just space out on my promises.
Thank you for your patience There will be a grade book up soon
Cahill, in Foucault, Rape and the Construction of the Feminine Body, attacks Foucault’s theory on rape. In a 1977 roundtable discussion of his theories from Discipline and Punish, Foucault proposed that rape was not any different than other form of physical assault. He claimed,
“…in any case, sexuality can in no circumstances be the object of punishment. And when one punishes rape one should be punishing physical violence and nothing but that. …[If rape is punished differently] what we are saying amounts to this: sexuality as such, in the body, has a preponderant place, the sexual organ isn’t like a hand, hair or a nose. It therefore has to be protected, surrounded, invested in any case with a legislation that isn’t that pertaining to the rest of the body. …It isn’t a matter of sexuality, it’s the physical violence that would be punished, without bringing in the fact that sexuality was involved” (Foucault quoted in Cahill, 2000: 43).
I appreciate everyone’s opinion about what Foucault said.
However, very few of you actually say what he did say (ie a quote and page reference)
Please use citations – we are on electronic mail but this is an academic class. When you say torturers do x or y, you must cite a reference or predicate your remark with I have heard that- because you cannot state as “truth” what you cannot cite or credit unless it is your own personal experience.
Some of you have cited what you think is Foucault’s view on rape and have not given any citation. Therefore it is removed from the context in which he wrote it. Perhaps today i will write about his idea and give context for it.
Meanwhile substance is what counts. Talk about the text thanks
we had a post about that film. Although i am not clear how the remarks relate to Foucault – except that the film occurs in a prison, and refers to power and the subject . . . .
I think it is a really excellent film and it wasnt a box office success because of its length.
If you want to watch it for extra credit i am happy to entertain your remarks j
The Press Democrat Saturday, August 26, 2006
By Daniel Weintraub
Signs of Change in Youth Prisons
check it out either on the class website or thru press democrat. thanks ben
