Essay Database

1. Explain Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon. The panopticon, as designed by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century, was an idea that was supposed to enable a prison guard to hold all his inmates in a jail under surveillance simultaneously, while disabling the inmates from seeing one another. According to Foucault, a systems such as this one would be necessary because it was becoming more of a norm to imprison criminals, irregardless of their individual …

…specialised or technical vocabulary. Each area has its own definition of discourse. Ideally, technical specialists always work together to establish their field and its dominant ideas. These technical fields have had ever-increasing power over people, and these discourses have profoundly shaped the structure of our society. For example, the discourse on madness produced by psychiatrists, psychologists and other experts define the roles of craziness, and therefore also the roles of normality that we take on.