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From: John Sproule <jsproule@xxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 13:58:40 -0500 (EST)
At 12:20 AM 12/3/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Help!
> I am giving a colloquium to finish up my BA in May. One of the books of
>my focus is Foucault's Discipline and Punish. My focus is on Foucault's use
>of the science of subjugation by learning all that can be learned about man
>by incarcerating him and observing him as a captive in the penal system. Do
>I have the correct slant on this?
>
>
I read Foucault's Discipline and Punish as another important contribution to
his historical critique of the human sciences. In DP, he shows how these
objective approaches to man are intertwined in the carceral practices
developing at the same time. Man, as an object of study, is an outcome of
these disciplinary practices, as well as the the body of knowledge growing
out of this. (I suppose the phrase "body of knowledge" can be taken both in
reference to the field of knowledge, itself, and the corporeal body). It is
in this context that Foucault emphasizes that power is productive.
Something is brought into being through the production of knowledge about
individuals, who are the subjects of this new and growing field of study --
individuals, themselves, are being produced.
John Sproule
Knoxville, TN