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Poststructuralism II: Foucault - Coggle Diagram
Poststructuralism II: Foucault
Studies Systems of Thought
Discourse
Episteme
are historically specific, supra individual orders of knowledge
define what counts as true
provide the basis for the sciences
define how signs relate to things
manifest themselves in discourses
is the totality of relations that can be discovered, for a given period, between the sciences when one analyses them at the level of discursive regularities
The Renaissance Episteme
15th/16th century: signs and things resemble each other and are interchangeable
e.g microcosm/macrocosm, blood/air, yellow bile/fire, black bile/ earth, phlegm/water
The Enlightenment Episteme
17th/18th c: signs and things disconnected: signs
represent
things
e.g. scientific labelling and classification of plants in botanical gardens
non- interchangeable , tools for classification
The Modern Episteme
19th c (Modernity) sings become interesting in their own right
human sciences
Foucault's 2 method of inquiry
Achaeology
excavation of
past systems of thought
Genealogy
study of the
emergence and development of systems of thought
Political activist: advocacy for patients in mental institutions, homosexuals, prisoners, immigrants
The Discursive Construction of Madness
history of the concept of
'madness' from the Middle Ages to the 19th century
approaches to the mad...
locked away in towers
sent away in ships
admitted to hospitals
tolerated within 'normal' society
the mad symbolised...
the dark side of culture
the atmosphere of unrest
no strict separation between reason and madness
history of the exclusion of madness from reason-based societies
madness is not a psychological but a social phenomenon
Madness in the Age of Reason / Enlightenment
(17-18th century)
Strict separation between reason and madness
Madness and the negation of reason- internment
exclusion and silencing / no treatment
the mad, beggars, criminals, and sick were all interned together
the mad held in chains
Madness in Modern Society
(19th century onwards)
seen as...
a mysterious phenomenon that deserves to be studied
an illness that must be treated
scientific approach...
observation
analysis
documentation
classification
goal: treatment
The mad are
no longer chained
but they are still
locked away
in mental institutions
they are
studied and treated for their illness
mad (wo)man as a specific type of human being
Foucault argues that modern psychiatry...
exclude and locks the mad away
exercises power by subjecting the mad to...
continuous observation
the codes of scientific classification and documentation
the codes of bourgeois rationality, morality, and family structures
Madness as a
Discursive Construct
discourse: 3 examples
enlightenment discourse
modern scientific discourse
psychoanalytic discourse
DEF: Discourses are practices that systematically form the objects (madness) of which they speak
they determine what counts as true and what can be said, thought and known at a specific historical moment (that is why concepts change)
are networks of power/knowledge
assign subject positions
The Order of Things
(1966)
history is a succession of radically different orders of knowledge that define what counts as true
Death of Man
Man is is an invention of recent date: man would be erased
Man as an invention of humanism and the Englightenment
language, discourses, and epistimes as sources of truth and knowledge
subjects are constructed and subjected by discourses
Man - Autonomous, self-determined individual; source of truth and knowledge
Panopticon
total surveillance
prisoner's self-disciplining
modern, soft power (vs. hard power of torture)
hard power of torture
Feudal -Sovereign power
public spectacle
complete destruction of the offender's body
torture
(soft)
disciplinary power
(19th century prisons)
reform
is the goal
self-disciplining
of the prisoner's body
restoration
of the self' disciplined subject to society
the panopticon is a model for all of society.
power is exercised
invisibly** and anonymously
subjects discipline themselves
surveillance
3 disciplinary techniques in prisons, factories, hospitals, schools, etc
hierarchical observation
normalising judgement
examination
example: Paul Auster's "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story"