Re: the birth of the factory?

>Being only slightly provocative, however, read Discipline and Punish
>properly, and you'll see its not really about the 'prison' at all. It's a
>genealogy of the modern soul, of the policing of society. The factory is in
>there, along with the army camp, the hospital, the school... and the prison.

for sure: and while we're on this subject we might ask; What is _Folie et
deraison_ if not a tour de force on the birth of industrious society? All
the same, we're still missing a detailed genealogy of the factory. There
is a space here.
OK, OK--I'll own up: the reason I'm looking is that I'm teaching a 12
week course on "prisons, asylums and other (extra)ordinary institutions".
My preferred plan is simply to have the kids only read _Madness &
Civilization_, _The Birth of the Clinic_, _Discipline and Punish_, and
Oestreich's _Neostoicism and the early modern state_. We might actually
get somewhere, and in these together alone there is more than enough
material to keep us going (the possible lines of research from these four
texts alone are endless). Yet it's probable--even here at one of the more
liberal of American universities--that such a short reading list might
raise a few eyebrows on the curriculum committee. Not that I care; I just
don't want to go through the idiotic process of trying to justify such a
narrow scope to people who in all probability have next to no idea of what
any of these books contain. Hence I'm putting together a more
comprehensive, broader outline (in part because that's also fun). In
addition to Marx, I just wondered if anyone knew of a genealogy of the
factory, as I'd like--as well as highlighting the correspondance--to think
also about why factories are not actually prisons (or not thought to be;
though of course they are as much as the actual prisons).

am I making any sense?


best wishes/sincerely,

______________________________________________
Ian R. Douglas | Watson Institute of International Studies
Brown University, Box 1831, Providence, RI 02912 USA

tel: 401 863-2420 fax: 401 863-2192

"The human being is an animal that requires
discipline and is capable of achieving it
through reason." Immanuel Kant

http://www.powerfoundation.org



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