Michel de Montaigne

Is there eternal sunshine in the spotless mind? This is the question posed by writers Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth in their movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This movie, directed by Gondry, explores the idea that feelings and emotions are more powerful than memories, and that if we erased all of our memories, we would still possess the feelings and emotions that were created by those memories. The movie was inspired by a male friend of Bismuth who said that he…

In every society there is a form that is followed, a pattern of behavior and a structure that in some ways defines the nature of that society. In the case of Western civilization these structures are explored historically by Michel Foucault and dissected, asking why they are the way they are, what station they occupy in our society and how this affects those of us who live within this civilization. Foucault leads us on a journey fraught with insights to the mystery, terrors and trials of the…

The body in the closet Visibility is not simply about the recognition, identification and categorization of bodies, but it is also how bodies negotiate and exist within systems of power. These are the very dynamics which regulate the invisibility of certain bodies as well. The idea of the ‘closet’ which Sedgwick develops, points at how complicated the promise of invisibility inside the closet and visibility outside the closet is. According to her, culture can be understood through the…

French historian, social theorist, philosopher and public intellectual Michel Foucault is remembered for his means of using historical research to elucidate the changes in discourse over time and the ever growing links between discourse, knowledge, institutions, and power. Born October 15th, 1926 in Poitiers, France, Michel Foucault was the second of three children in a middle-class family. His father, Paul Foucault, was an esteemed local surgeon. Both of Foucault's grandfathers were also…

Foucault was after the concept of a “pure community” he found the existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring and supervising abnormal beings, as well as bringing into play the disciplinary mechanisms created by fear. All modern mechanisms for controlling abnormal individuals derive from these. Sao Foucault’s overall thoughts on this concept maybe similar to that of the Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see…

“In the year 1866 the whole maritime population of Europe and America was excited by a mysterious and inexplicable phenomenon.” This is the first line of Jules Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I chose to read this novel because my grandfather spoke highly of it. He’d wanted me to read it for a while, so I downloaded the audiobook. I never got around to listening to it until I got this project. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to get it read. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is a…

Foucault discusses many concepts in the first volume of his book; The History of Sexuality. According to Foucault, there are four rules of which power deploys in terms of sexuality; the one I will discuss is Tactical Polyvalence. I will explain what this rule means, as well as how it applies to everyday life. The final rule of the deployment of power, tactical polyvalence, is a challenging term to understand. First, to break down the rule itself, I will define the term word by word. Tactical is…

As I began watching the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I started to assume that the movie would be played out as a typical love storyline. However, that all changed as the “love” story turned into a dramatic element. The writer of this movie set Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), two individuals that dated in the past, to reconnect not knowing of their previous affairs. In this twist of a story, Charlie Kaufman cultivated this movie with reoccurring themes, which…

Gambling, political dissidence, and economy may not seem to have much in common at first, but all have a key goal of “beating the system”. Michel Foucault presents a method of discipline that attempts to destroy an individual’s likelihood of going against government rulings: panopticism. Panopticism advocates the idea that a prisoner or subject potentially under constant scrutiny will not misbehave under observation. In William Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello is under constant scrutiny. Likewise,…

Unit 5 Assignment/Question 2 French philosopher Michel Foucault, whose primary field of inquiry was that of power systems working to control and monitor individuals, was massively interested in the process of punishment and how it evolved over time on the basis of power play in the society. This essay seeks to explore Foucault’s examination of the history of punishment, the changes that the penal system went through, the advantages and disadvantages that came with these changes and how…