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Foucault PPT Birth of Prison
Foucault PPT Birth of Prison
Punish
Spring 2006
About the Author
To the extent that Foucault fits into the philosophical tradition, it is the
critical tradition of Kant, and his project could be called a Critical History
of Thought. This should not be taken to mean a history of ideas that
would be at the same time an analysis of errors that might be gauged
after the fact; or a decipherment of the misinterpretations linked to them
and on which what we think today might depend. If what is meant by
thought is the act that posits a subject and an object, along with their
possible relations, a critical history of thought would be an analysis of
the conditions under which certain relations of subject to object are
formed or modified, insofar as those relations constitute a possible
knowledge [savoir].
This text was first written by Foucault as a retrospective view about his work for the introduction to his
book "History of Sexuality", it was then given by Foucault, under the pseudonym "Maurice Florence"
as the article for the entry "Foucault" in "Dictionnaire des philosophes" 1984, pp 942-944.
http://foucault.info/foucault/biography.html
Faces of Michel Foucault
Again, about himself…
'My role - and that is too emphatic a word - is to
show people that they are much freer than they
feel, that people accept as truth, as evidence,
some themes which have been built up at a certain
moment during history, and that this so-called
evidence can be criticized and destroyed.‘
'Truth, power, self: An interview with Michel Foucault October 25 1982', in Technologies
of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault Eds Luther H. Martin and Patrick Hutton,
Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988, p.10
I. Torture
II. Punishment
III. Discipline
IV. Prison
Or is it this…
Punishment
Discipline
Prison
Or this?
Prison
Discipline
Punishment
Torture
Can we even say, before we’ve
“defined” what Foucault means
by each section title?
Torture
• Mid-18th century
• Intentional pain
• Person as “mark-able”
Punishment
• “‘Let penalties be regulated and proportioned to
the offences, let the death sentence be passed
onl on those convicted of murder, and let the
tortures that revolt humanity be abolished.’” (73)
• 19th century penal reform
• Punishment as “reformatory” in which the
offender is re-trained as an obedient subject, a
compliant signatory to the social contract.
• Person as repairable.
Discipline
• Making soldiers. Break down, build up.
• Close order drill.
• This idea can be transferred to other
activities – can make lawyers, activists,
MBA, etc. – molding people.
• You can build the rules into people.
• Person as docile, programmable,
trainable.
Prison
• Prison is an invention but one that has come to be
completely taken for granted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert-Fran%C3%A7ois_Damiens
h
The
Assassination
of Louis XV by
Damiens
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/9/5/11956/11956-h/11956-h.htm
Damiens Being Broken on the Wheel
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/602/
h
Eighty years later, Faucher drew up
his rules "for the House of young
prisoners in Paris"
• "Art. 17. The prisoners' day will begin at six in the morning in
winter and at five in summer. They will work for nine hours a day
throughout the year. Two hours a day will be devoted to
instruction. Work and the day will end at nine o'clock in winter
and at eight in summer.
• Art. 18. Rising. At the first drum-roll, the prisoners must rise and
dress in silence, as the supervisor opens the cell doors. At the
second drum-roll, they must be dressed and make their beds. At
the third, they must line up and proceed to the chapel for
morning prayer. There is a five-minute interval between each
drum-roll.
• Art. 19. The prayers are conducted by the chaplain and followed by a moral or religious reading. This exercise
must not last more than half an hour.
• Art. 20. Work. At a quarter to six in the summer, a quarter to seven in winter, the prisoners go down into the
courtyard where they must wash their hands and faces, and receive their first ration of bread. Immediately
afterwards, they form into work-teams and go off to work, which must begin at six in summer and seven in winter.
• Art. 21. Meal. At ten o'clock the prisoners leave their work and go to the refectory; they wash their hands in their
courtyards and assemble in divisions. After the dinner, there is recreation until twenty minutes to eleven.
• Art. 22. School. At twenty minutes to eleven, at the drum-roll, the prisoners form into ranks, and proceed in
divisions to the school. The class lasts two hours and consists alternately of reading, writing, drawing and
arithmetic.
“The Body of the Condemned”
Change? Humanization?
Change in Objective
mercantile economy
Penitentiary, forced labor, prison
factory
industrial economy
Need for free labor market
corrective detention
QUESTION: What transformations
does Foucault take note of here?
• A whole series of parallel transformations. If we can line
them up we might be able to see some of his logic.
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