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PANOPTICON;
OR
THE INSPECTION-HOUSE:
CONTAINING THE
IDEA OF A NEW PRINCIPLE OF CONSTRUCTION
APPLICABLE TO
ANY SORT OF ESTABLISHMENT, IN WHICH PERSONS OF
ANY DESCRIPTION ARE TO BE KEPT UNDER INSPECTION;
AND IN PARTICULAR TO
PENITENTIARY-HOUSES,
PRISONS, HOUSES OF INDUSTRY, WORK-HOUSES, POOR-HOUSES, LAZARETTOS, MANUFACTORIES, HOSPITALS, MAD-HOUSES, AND SCHOOLS:
WITH
A PLAN OF MANAGEMENT
ADAPTED TO THE PRINCIPLE:
IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1787, FROM CRECHEFF IN WHITE
RUSSIA. TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND
BY JEREMY BENTHAM,
OF LINCOLN’S INN, ESQUIRE.
Have you ever wondered if there might be some hidden purpose in Homeland Security measures that have all the homies under seemingly constant surveilance yet seem never to search out the hidden dangers they claim to protect us from? This 1787 classic text may have more to say about contemporary life than the age of it would suggest.
Source: Bentham, Jeremy The Panopticon Writings. Ed. Miran Bozovic (London: Verso, 1995). p. 29-95
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Ulrich Duchrow - Articles Online
Links to 15 articles available oline, in English, and to a brief biographical article, in German.
Books
v3.0 by www.fairtec.at
John Law First published 1992
Introduction
Just occasionally we find ourselves watching on the sidelines as an order comes crashing down... Commissars, moguls and captains of industry disappear from view... when the hidden trapdoors of the social spring open we suddenly learn that the masters of the universe may also have feet of clay....
How is that, at least for a time, they made themselves different from us? By what organisational means did they keep themselves in place and overcome the resistances that would have brought them tumbling down much sooner? How was it we colluded in this? These are some of the key questions of social science. And they are the questions that lie at the heart of "actor-network theory"
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