Panopticon - Thesis Proposal Example

The Panopticon Power and control are metaphysical ideas. This means that there is no actual power that you can see or touch, likewise you cant feelcontrol. Indeed you can only perceive such illusions. With that said the panopticon functions based on the illusions of power and control. The Panopticon is a convenient means of settling penal transportation and arrangements through common surveillance.This is an important subject to study because of its capacity to create convert prisoners into docile bodies who self regulate their own actions.

The nature of this control and how prisoners learn to succumb to such illusory authority lacks any significant attention from academia. While there has been little attention given to this phenomenon, there still have been several prominent figures who have addressed such formations. Most notably, Michel Foucault discusses the Panopticon in his book”Discipline and Punish”. He explains that the panopticon induces a sense of permanent visibility that ensures the functioning of power. Bentham further explains that power should be visible yet unverifiable.

The prisoner can always see the tower but never knows from where he is being observed. This infrastructure is one of great importance that should be further investigated. Works CitedBarton, Ben F., and Marthalee S. Barton. "Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7.1, 1993, 138-62.Bentham, Jeremy. Panopticon (Preface). In Miran Bozovic (ed.), The Panopticon Writings, London: Verso, 1995, 29-95.Braver, Lee. A Thing of This World: a History of Continental Anti-Realism.

Northwestern University Press: 2007. This study covers Foucault and his contribution to the history of Continental Anti-Realism.Farmer, Adrian, Belper and Milford, Tempus Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2004, 119.M. Quinn (ed.), Writings on the Poor Laws: Volume II, Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford, 2010), pp. 98-9, 105-6, 112-3, 352-3, 502-3.