MCM 0900: Mediating Bodies: Power and Technology in the Biopolitical Age
Professor: David Bering-Porter
Office Hours: Wednesday, 3:00-4:30pm or by appointment, basement offices (MCM)
Email: David_Bering-Porter@brown.edu
Co-ordinates: MCM – 155 George Street – Room 106 (Henkle Room)
Seminar – Tuesday & Thursday, 1:00-2:20pm
Screening Lab – Monday 7:00-11:00pm (MCM – Thayer Street – Production 1)
Website – mycourses.brown.edu
This course analyzes the emergence of biotechnology in contemporary culture and
politics. Ranging from critical theories of science and information to critical theories of
media and technology, we will explore modern Western culture's investments and
interventions in the "natural" body. Topics include evolution and eugenics, race,
biometrics, genetics and genomics, issues in reproduction and cloning, cyborgs, and
DNA as code. We will give careful consideration to their emergence in the discourses of
both science and popular culture and to the technologies and media that support our
understanding of such processes. Overall, we will ask: what are the consequences of
these manifestations of modern and postmodern power in the most basic conditions of
life? Readings will include: Foucault, Canguilhem, Sekula, Lyotard, Mendel, Watson,
Jacob, Hayles. Enrollment limited to 20. Prerequisite: one MCM course required.
Requirements:
• Active attendance to all seminar meetings and screenings
• Two Seminar Presentations
• First Paper
• Second Paper
• Final Project
Presentation & Paper Structure
- Presentations - Every student will be required to present twice over the course of
the semester. Presentations should be crafted so as to coherently and engagingly
articulate the main arguments of the material, provide your own perspective on
the texts, and also to ground a productive discussion that moves towards
answering your questions. The presentations serve as part one of a two-step
process in which the material presented by a student will be turned into a paper.
Thus, the notes from the presentation will serve as an outline for the paper,
although students are strongly advised not to read presentation notes word for
word because extemporaneous speaking is more engaging. Students have one
week from the time of his or her presentation to hand in the finished paper. NB:
While each presentation will have a designated respondent (see below), the
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presenter should be prepared to respond to the respondent’s questions, participate
and help lead discussion.
Respondents - Each presentation will have a designated respondent who is
responsible for raising questions of the presenter and facilitating class discussion.
Assuming two presentations per Thursday class, the total time for presentation,
response and class discussion is 40 minutes.
Papers - Each of the two mid-term papers will follow from the questions and
material laid out in the presentation. The emphasis of these papers should be on
conceptual exploration, working through the material, and following through on
the student’s own interests and concerns. Completed mid-term papers should be
handed in no more than one week from the date of the presentation.
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Presentations should be approximately 10 minutes long.
Presentations should coherently articulate the main points of the reading
and present your own perspective on the material with an eye towards
fleshing out the presentation into a mid-term paper.
Respondents should come prepared to ask considered questions of both the
presenter and the material and also facilitate class discussion for
approximately 30 minutes.
Papers should be 5-7 pages in length.
The finished paper should be handed in 1 week from the time of the
presentation.
Grading Schema:
• First Presentation – 10%
• First Paper (5-7 pages) – 15%
• Second Presentation – 10%
• Second Paper (5-7 pages) – 20%
• Final Project (10-15 pages) – 30%
• Participation– 15%
Readings:
Books:
- Michel Foucualt, “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the College de
France, 1975-1976
- Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol. 1
- Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
- N. Katharine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman
- Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life
- Elizabeth Wilson, Psychosomatic
- R.C. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology
Recommended:
- Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition
- David J. Hess, Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction
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All other required readings will be provided through online course reserves (OCRA).
The password for online access through OCRA is: biomedia
Week 1 :: 1.23 :: Class Introduction
Thursday:
Logistics and Overview
Week 2 :: 1.28 :: The Evolution of Power
Screening:
Fido (Andrew Currie, 2007)
Tuesday:
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
• Part 1.1 “The body of the condemned”
• Part 3.1 “Docile bodies”
• Part 3.2 “The means of correct training”
• Part 3.3 “Panopticism”
Thursday:
Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life
• Chapter 1 The Visible Structure
Week 3 :: 2.4 :: Biopolitics I
Screening:
Videodrome & The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1983 & 1986)
Tuesday:
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
• Part 4.3 “The carceral”
Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol. 1
• Part 2 “The Repressive Hypothesis”
• Part 5 “Right of Death and Power over Life”
Thursday:
Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life
• Introduction: The Programme
• Chapter 2: Organization (Selections)
• Chapter 4: The Gene
Week 4 :: 2.11 :: Biopolitics II
Screening:
The Invasion (Oliver Herschbiegel, 2007)
Tuesday:
Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”
• One 7 January 1976
• Three 21 January 1976
• Four 28 January 1976
• Eleven 17 March 1976
Thursday:
Ian Hacking, “How should we do the History of Statistics?” (online)
Georges Canguilhem, “Knowledge and the Living” (online)
Week 5 :: 2.18 :: The Archive
Screening:
No Class - Holiday
Tuesday:
No Class - Holiday
Thursday:
Allan Sekula, “The Body and the Archive” (online)
Michel Foucault, “The Historical a priori and the Archive” (online)
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Week 6 :: 2.25 :: Race and Visibility
Screening:
African American Lives (Henry Louis Gates, 2006)
Tuesday:
http://galton.org (explore)
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (Selections) (online)
R.C. Lewontin, Biology as Ideology
Thursday:
Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended” (Selections)
Coco Fusco, “Racial Time, Racial Marks, Racial Metaphors” (online)
Jennifer Gonzalez, “Morphologies: Race as a Visual Technology” (online)
Howard Winant, “The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race” (online)
Week 7 :: 3.3 :: Eugenics and Invisible Traits
Screening:
Genetics Lab
Tuesday:
Charles Davenport, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (Selections) (online)
James D. Watson, “Article on Davenport” (online)
Thursday:
Gregor Mendel, “Experiments in Plant Hybridization” (online)
(http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.html)
Jan Sapp, “The Nine Lives of Gregor Mendel” (online)
(http://www.mendelweb.org/MWsapp.intro.html)
Week 8 :: 3.10 :: Modernity and Individuality
Screening:
Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
Tuesday:
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction” (online)
Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (online)
(www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Samp
le_chapter/9780631225133/Bridge.pdf)
Thursday:
Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Selections) (online)
Week 9 :: 3.17 :: Hysteria and the Fragmented Body
Screening:
Flesh for Frankenstein (Paul Morrissey, 1973)
Tuesday:
Sigmund Freud, “Anna O.” (online)
Elizabeth Wilson, Psychosomatic
Thursday:
Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia” (online)
Georges Didi-Huberman, The Invention of Hysteria (Selections) (online)
Week 10 :: 3.24 :: Spring Break (No Classes)
Week 11 :: 3.31 :: Depression and Anti-Depression
Screening:
Pharmacology Lab
Tuesday:
Elizabeth Wilson, “Ingesting Placebo”
Julia Kristeva, Black Sun (Selections) (online)
Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself (Pharmacological Selves) (online)
Thursday:
Joseph Dumit, “Bodies Aggregate: Accumulating Prognoses, Growing
Markets, Experimental Subjects”
Karl Marx, Capital (Selections) (online)
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Week 12 :: 4.7 :: Science, Power, Postmodernity
Screening:
The Matrix (Wachowski Bros, 1999)
Tuesday:
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition
Thursday:
David J. Hess, Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction
Week 13 :: 4.14 :: Information, Technology, and the Body
Screening:
Battlestar Galactica
Tuesday:
Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology” (online)
Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life
• Chapter 5: The Molecule
Thursday:
Donna Haraway, “The Cyborg Manifesto” (online)
N. Katharine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman (Selections)
Week 14 :: 4.21 :: Biotechnology
Screening:
Battlestar Galactica
Tuesday:
N. Katharine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman (Selections)
Thursday:
Nikolas Rose, The Poltics of Life Itself (Chapter 1) (online)
Week 15 :: 4.28 :: Control/Conclusion
Screening:
TBD
Tuesday:
Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on Societies of Control” (online)
Michel Foucault, “Governmentality” (online)
Thursday:
Conclusion
Week 16 :: 5.5 :: Reading Period
Final Projects Due: May 16, 2008
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