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    Class 8.2 - Foucault On Disciplinary Power

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    Class 8.2 - Foucault On Disciplinary Power

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    Intro - Foucault on Disciplinary Power

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    Class 8.2 - Foucault On Disciplinary Power

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    Class 8.

    2 – Foucault on Disciplinary Power

    Marx and Weber were both reacting to the emergence of modern society, and each of them
    believed that their world had been profoundly altered by the development of capitalism. Many
    of the social structures that came to dominate society at that time are still with us, including
    the nation-state, capitalism, democracy, and the rule of law. As such, their work is still very
    relevant to attempts to understand contemporary society, and the legal system that is such a
    crucial part of the social order. Yet neither society nor the law has stood still since social
    theory first emerged - indeed, the pace of change in both is without precedent. As such, in the
    latter part of the course, we engage with a range of thinkers whose work responds to the
    changing social and legal landscape of the the 20th and 21st centuries. And we do so to deal
    with a range of pressing legal and political problems, including issues of gender and rights, the
    politics of security and its impact on constitutional law, climate change, and the treatment of
    refugees.

    We begin with the work of Michel Foucault, who has been incredibly influential across the
    humanities. In this class, we look at Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,
    which argues that a new form of power that he calls ‘disciplinary power’ came to dominate
    social organisation in the nineteenth century and that it has profoundly transformed the legal
    system in that time. In our second class on Foucault, we will look at the way he broadens out
    his analysis of the forms of power that are peculiar to modernity through his analysis of
    ‘biopower’ and its relationship to racism. A little later in the course we will look at the work
    of Wendy Brown, who draws heavily on Foucault’s work on governmentality to analyse the
    impact of neoliberalism on law and society.

    I have provided a Smart Sparrow Exercise that introduces Foucault’s life and work. It also
    covers part of the readings on disciplinary power. The idea is that covering these basics of his
    analysis online will give us more time and space to discuss and analyse what he is saying in
    class.

    Readings

    Smart Sparrow Exercise, ‘Michel Foucault,’ (which should take approximately 1 hour,
    excluding the readings).

    Michel Foucault, extracts from ‘The Body of the Condemned,’ ‘Panopticism,’ Discipline and
    Punish: The Birth of the Prison, pp.3-16, 200-225 (please note, the reading starts at p.195.
    Please feel free to read from there if you want to, but you only need to read from p.200
    onwards).

    1. In what way does the Panopticon illustrate the nexus between power and knowledge that
    Foucault emphasises?
    2. What function does the panopticon play in Foucault’s work? Ie what is the point of him
    analysing this seemingly obscure idea of Bentham?
    3. How do the disciplines change in the shift from ‘panopticism’ to the ‘disciplinary
    society’?
    4. What are the social and economic changes to which the rise of disciplinary power is
    connected?
    5. What is the relationship between disciplinary power and rights?
    6.

    Discussion

    1. Foucault’s analysis of the prison maps the emergence of disciplinary power in the late
    18th and 19th centuries. Do you think that his analysis is still relevant to contemporary
    society?

    2. It is well known now that recidivism is very high and this suggests that prisons don’t
    reform prisoners in the way that Foucault’s analysis of the panopticon seems to
    envisage. Does this undermine the validity and relevance of Foucault’s analysis?

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