Foucault writes the history of the present through the prison

Evidence

I would like to write the history of this prison, with all the political investments of the body that it gathers together in its closed architecture. Why? Simply because I am interested in the past? No, if one means by that writing a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if one means writing the history of the present. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 80

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the methodological meaning of ‘history of the present’ — reading the past’s institutions to expose the present’s power structures, which is exactly the lens reader is applying to telescreen discipline.
• XREF: connects to: The prison was conceived as an apparatus for transforming human beings — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 506; Foucault used historical scholarship to illuminate the present diagonally. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 95

Related

• Foucault used historical scholarship to illuminate the present diagonally. (similarity 0.90)
• Prison integrated correctional transformation into legal detention from the start (similarity 0.82)
• The prison was conceived as an apparatus for transforming human beings (similarity 0.82)
• The birth of the prison is analyzed only within the French penal system. (similarity 0.82)
• The public spectacle of punishment gave way to enclosed hierarchized detention within decades. (similarity 0.81)
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish (similarity 0.80)
• Prisons resemble schools, factories, and hospitals because one disciplinary model unifies them (similarity 0.79)
• The prison’s disciplinary excess over legal detention was present from its birth (similarity 0.79)
• Prison resists reform because it relays a broad network of disciplines and surveillances. (similarity 0.79)
• The prison is totalizing and unceasingly disciplinary, with no exterior (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The prison was conceived as an apparatus for transforming human beings #expands (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 506