Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 15:02:28 -0500
Subject: Foucault in _King George_


This is brilliant thinking, Ian! Thanks for sharing it with us!

        ---Randall Albright

>>Waht about 12 Monkeys for "Madness and Civilization"?
>
>I did think about that, but the scene in _King George_ where having being
>subject to all sorts of coercions George strikes out with "but I am the
>King of England", to which his assigned physician replies, "No Sir, you are
>the patient" swung it for me.  This is a stunning scene; one that perfectly
>reflects the deeper and broader shift of the 18thC from sovereign to
>biopower.  Also in _King George_ madness is made to 'confess'; the King
>being made, upon the threat of once more being gagged and strapped to his
>chair (the denial of the manic mobility of madness itself), to declare
>outloud and intelligibly the truth about his own madness.  Then, perhaps
>the best scene.  Have people checked this out?  Where King George upon
>recognising his own bad behaviour, walks calmly to his chair and *straps
>himself in!*  Just amazing.  This perfectly prepares the ground for our
>later sessions on the government of souls; panopticism, the automatic
>functioning of power, where "inmates" are caught up in a system of which
>"they are themselves the bearers".
>
>
>take care,
>
>_______________________________________________________
>Ian Robert Douglas,
>Visiting Lecturer & Fulbright Scholar,
>Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute of International Studies,
>Brown University, Box 1831,
>World Hunger Program,
>130 Hope Street,
>Providence, RI  02912
>
>tel: 401 863-2420 (direct line)
>fax: 401 863-1270
>
>"Great is Justice;
>Justice is not settled by legislation and laws
>     it is in the soul .. " - Walt Whitman