Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews April 4, 2023 March 28, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Foucault begins with the ideal of the soldier in the seventeenth century. He is easily recognizable in body and action. The classical age discovered the body as the target of power. The docile body is subjected, used, transformed and improved. Eighteenth century projects of docility represented a new scale of control. The economy of the body became important. The modality of control implies uninterrupted, constant coercion, which is exercised according to a codification that partitions time and space. These methods are the disciplines, ways of controlling the operations of the body which imposed a relation of docility-utility. The disciplines had always existed in monasteries and armies, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they became a general formula of domination. A policy of coercion that acts on the body was formed. The human body entered a machinery that explored and rearranged it. A political anatomy and a mechanics of power were slowly born. We cannot write the history of different disciplinary institutions, merely map a series of detailed examples.
"The art of distributions." Discipline proceeds from the distribution of individuals in space, and employs several techniques: one) Discipline sometimes requires enclosure in a protected place, e.g. a school, factory, or barracks. two) Disciplinary machinery works on the principle of partitioning space; it is always cellular. three) The rule of functional sites would gradually code a space that architecture left at the disposal of several sites. four) In discipline, the elements are interchangeable because each is identified by its place in a series. The key unit is the rank or place in a classification. Rank begins to define the distribution of individuals in educational space.
"Control of activity." One) the timetable is an old inheritance, suggested by monastic communities. The division of time in disciplinary authorities increased. two) The temporal elaboration of the act. Time penetrates the body with all the meticulous controls of power. three) The correlation of body and gesture. Disciplinary power imposes the best relation between gesture and the overall position of the body. In the correct use of the body, nothing must remain useless. four) Body-object articulation. Discipline defines each of the relationships between body and the object (e.g. a rifle) it manipulates. five) Exhaustive use. The traditional timetable forbids men to waste time. Discipline provides a positive economy, and poses the principle of ever-expanding use of time. The "natural body," which is manipulated by authority and classified, supercedes the mechanical body.
"The organization of geneses." As the eighteenth century progressed, different arrangements of time were evident; new technology developed in the classical period for regulating time, bodies and forces. The Disciplines were machinery for adding up and capitalizing time, in four different ways: one) by dividing duration into successive and parallel segments, each of which ends with a specific time. two) By organizing these segments according to an analytical plan. three) By finalizing these temporal segments with an examination to decide if a subject has reached the required level. four) By drawing up a series of series, and subdividing each series again. Dividing activities into series makes detailed control and intervention possible.
Disciplinary methods reveal a linear, evolutive time. But at the same time a social time of a serial cumulative type existed, giving an idea of evolution in terms of "genesis". The two great discoveries of the eighteenth century were the progress of society and the genesis of individuals linked to new technologies of power. At the center of the seriation of time was the procedure of exercise, a technology by which one imposes a repetitive or difficult task on the body. Exercise has a long history: it is found in military, religious, and universal practice as ritual or ceremony. Exercises became tasks of increasing complexity that marked the acquisition of knowledge and good behavior. Exercise was initially a way of organizing time towards salvation, but it became part of a political technology of the body.
"The Composition of forces." The military unit became a machine of many parts; there was a need to create smaller units out of a mass. This was similar to the idea of creating a productive force that was greater than its elements. Discipline became the art of composing forces to obtain an efficient machine. This demands explanation: one) the individual body becomes an element that is placed, moved and articulated. The soldier or body is inserted into a larger machine. two) The time of the individual unit is adjusted to the time of others. three) A carefully measured combination of forces requires a precise command of forces. The leader needs to signal in various ways to his charges.
Please wait while we process your payment