Michel Foucault College Essays Samples For Students

Paul Michel Foucault is a renowned scholar of philosophy and psychology. He also participated in several political activities and visited several countries. Foucault also visited prisons in France and America and developed his analytical approach about the conditions of prisons. He wrote about this issue thoroughly and in his book Discipline and Punish discusses several practical aspects of the issue. His influence is widely visible in America and after the incidents like 9/11 his relevancy has been accepted even by those who use to criticize his opinions. This paper discusses Foucault’s theory of Panopticism and several other aspects of ...

Introduction

The Foucauldian theory of Discourse has been an influential tool used by many organizations in shaping and enhancing the understanding on power. The theory has assisted many organizations to deviate from assessments of power from different actors who perceive the same as a coercion instrument. The Foucauldian theory of discourse additionally drives people away from the discreet operational structures of the actors and tries to make them understand that power is equally distributed, embodied and diffused in discourse, regimes of truth and knowledge. According to Michel Foucault, power operates on other levels and makes up who we are. Foucault's ...

1.Michel Foucault distinguishes between Sovereign Power and Disciplinary Power.
(a)What are the essential elements of each type of power?
(b) How would Foucault interpret Weber’s distinction between Catholicism and Calvinism?
(c) How would Foucault assess Durkheim’s distinction between Mechanical Solidarity and Organic Solidarity?
Michel Foucault’s philosophy is directly related to the concepts of power and security within a society. As such, Foucault frequently discusses the ways in which individuals should be punished for crimes against their society, and the parties that should be responsible for said punishment. The two chief types of power Foucault defines ...

In Parts one and Two of Volume One of Michael Foucault’s Philosophy on Sexuality, he analyses and distances himself from what he calls “Repression Hypothesis,” using our desire to analyze and investigate the “science” of our sexual behavior, our need to confess what we deem sexual immorality, and the productive nature of the relationship of sex to power and knowledge, as the key elements of his argument.
A definition of “Repression Hypothesis” is necessary for us to understand further why Foucault rejects it. According to American philosopher and University of California, Berkeley professor of Philosophy, Hurbert Dryfus, and ...

The Concept of Docile Bodies

Foucault defined docile bodies as flexible objects upon which disciplinary forces are acted, with each object being a node in an intricate and complicated field where power is arranged as well as controlled. In expanding on the concept of docile bodies, Foucault relied on the case of soldiers and their adaptability to the conditions imposed on them which makes them be recognized through their marching, the alert manner in which they behaved - erect head and the broad shoulders. This implies that even the recruits would be trained on how to acquire characteristics of a soldier making them able ...

The text authored by Sommerville expounds on the historical and current use of the term queer in society. The term itself is relatively new, and it is stated that it only first appeared in the English language in the late 16th century and possibly borrowed from other German words.(188). The word, in my mind, as I have heard used is usually in two contexts. The first defines anything that deviates away from the norm and typically has no negative connotation. The second definition and relevant in this text study are its use in a derogatory manner to refer ...

COMPARISION BETWEEN THE UTILITY OF WALLERSTEIN’S WORLD SYSTEM THEORY AND FOCAULT’S THREE UNDERSTANDINGS OF POWER

The world systems by Immanuel Wallenstein and Michel Foucault’s three understandings of power are some of the most important theories that explain power differences among nations (Polat 2012). Their relevance to international relations is that these schools of thought all endeavor to explain reasons why there is power imbalance among world nations in their trade and political relations with one another. According to the world system’s theory, there is need to have a holistic study of the entire world economy as a system in order to understand how each country fits into the whole world system.

Meaning of Power

The ...

Crimes are rampant today and laws have been implicated to prevent crime and impose regulations in a nation. Many laws have been reformed from brutal tortures to a lighter punishment which is imprisoning the law breakers. Even if this is more humane than the previous punishments, prison is still criticized by many. Michel Foucault was one who criticized imprisonment in his book ‘Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison’. He discusses the disciplinary power and its difference from the sovereign power of the state. In his book, he discusses a prison, Panopticon, of Illinois State Penitentiary. His idea was adopted in ...

Orientalism encompasses an academic discourse featuring a patronizing attitude by Westerners towards Asian and African societies. The West perceives Asian and African societies as undeveloped and static and in this way, creates a fallacious oriental culture by which Asians and Africans can be studied, shown and reproduced. On the other hand, in this fabrication by the Westerners, the West is taken to be developed, flexible, dynamic and superior. An etiological analysis of this term will suffice. Orientalism finds its origins in the word “Orient” which translates to the East, as seen by the West. Further, the term Orient has its origins ...