Bentham's Prison: A Study of the Panopticon Penitentiary

ISBN-13: 9780198273875 / Angielski / Twarda / 1993 / 360 str.

Janet Semple

Opis

At the end of the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham devised a scheme for a prison that he called the panopticon. For twenty years he tried to build it; in the end he failed, but the story of his attempt offers fascinating insights into both Bentham's complex character and the ideas of the period. Basing her analysis on hitherto unexamined manuscripts, Janet Semple chronicles Bentham's dealings with the politicians as he tried to put his plan into practice. She assesses the panopticon in the context of penal philosophy and eighteenth-century punishment and discusses it as an instrument of the modern technology of subjection as revealed and analyzed by Foucault.

Recenzje

`the journey of discovery through the book is entirely a pleasure. The learning, the elegant prose and the humour of Janet Semple, create a new and credible portrait of the old man who still sits stuffed and hatted `perpetually enthroned in his wooden box in the cloisters of University College, London'.' Utilitas