Michel Foucault : the unconscious of history and culture

Michel Foucault: The unconscious of history and culture The French thinker, Michel Foucault (1926–84), is noted for his extensive and controversial forays into the historical disciplines. When his work first began to circulate in the 1950s and 1960s, historians did not quite know what to make of it and philosophers resented the appearance of what they saw as the importation of the tedium of concrete events into the pure untainted realm of ideas. If these responses to his work remain alive and well decades after Foucault's death, the uptake of his work has become far more complex. To restrict ourselves to the discipline of history here: if one very visible and vocal camp of historians remains deeply ambivalent about his work, this merely disguises the fact that a far larger contingent of historians of all kinds – not just those located in history departments – use his ideas quite unremarkably ...

The impact of 'doomed race' assumptions in the administration of Queensland's Indigenous population by the Chief Protectors of Aboriginals from 1897 to 1942

This thesis researched how the anthropological claims of the Aborigines as a 'doomed race' in the decades between 1850 and 1870 became embedded and manifested in pervasive ideologies forming the racist protectionist policies framed in Queensland's Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act - 1897. Administering the Act was the government appointed Chief Protector of Aboriginals. Conferred with extraordinary powers, Chief Protectors acted and made decisions on behalf of successive governments who displayed little interest in Aboriginal affairs. Amendments to the Act between 1897 and 1939 reflected personal agendas and attitudes towards Aborigines by respective Chief Protectors. Conclusively, the research outcomes show that the 'doomed race' theory became a subterfuge for governments to mask society's racial prejudice against Indigenous peoples and allowed governments to dispossess the Indigenous people of their traditional lands without question from white settlers.

Spatial metaphor as spatial technique in the work of Michel Foucault

This essay argues that the deployment of spatial metaphor in the writing of Michel Foucault is indivisible from his spatial politics. Beginning with his 1967 essay "Of Other Spaces," the development of Foucault's spatial politics and his growing awareness of the importance to his work of spatial (particularly geographic) metaphors can be charted. The focus here is not the concretisation of Foucault's early spatial obsessions—particularly with regard to the concept of "heterotopia"—into a theory or model. Rather, I am concerned with the way in which those obsessions inform Foucault's major works, in particular The Archaeology of Knowledge and Discipline and Punish. These works, I argue, do not develop a theory of space, but instead perform, through their rhetoric, a kind of spatial praxis. In this sense, Foucault's metaphors become "spatial techniques" for the practice and production of power–knowledge.

A review of: "Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling: The Function of Avowal in Justice. By Michel Foucault. Edited by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt. Translated by Stephen W. Sawyer"

Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling: The Function of Avowal in Justice is a collection of seven lectures delivered by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault at the Catholic University of Louvain in 1981. Compiled from audiovisual recordings and Foucault’s original manuscripts, these lectures explore the notion of avowal and its place within criminal justice processes. Accompanied by three contemporaneous interviews given by Foucault (only one of which has previously been available in English), and a preface and concluding essay by the editors contextualizing these lectures in Foucault’s oeuvre, this volume contributes much to Foucaultian scholarship, particularly when considered alongside the recently published volumes of Foucault’s lecture courses at the Collège de France. However, while the book promises to offer some insights of relevance to criminology, it is important to remember that this is not its key purpose, and criminologists should read it with this caveat in mind...

La modernización entre cafetales : San José, Costa Rica, 1880-1930

This work examines the urban modernization of San José, Costa Rica, between 1880 and 1930, using a cultural approach to trace the emergence of the bourgeois city in a small Central American capital, within the context of order and progress. As proposed by Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells and Edward Soja, space is given its rightful place as protagonist. The city, subject of this study, is explored as a seat of social power and as the embodiment of a cultural transformation that took shape in that space, a transformation spearheaded by the dominant social group, the Liberal elite. An analysis of the product built environment allows us to understand why the city grew in a determined manner: how the urban space became organized and how its infrastructure and services distributed. Although the emphasis is on the Liberal heyday from 1880-1930, this study also examines the history of the city since its origins in the late colonial period through its consolidation as a capital during the independent era, in order to characterize the nineteenth century colonial city that prevailed up to 1890 s. A diverse array of primary sources including official acts, memoirs, newspaper sources, maps and plans, photographs, and travelogues are used to study the initial phase of San Jose s urban growth. The investigation places the first period of modern urban growth at the turn of the nineteenth century within the prevailing ideological and political context of Positivism and Liberalism. The ideas of the city s elite regarding progress were translated into and reflected in the physical transformation of the city and in the social construction of space. Not only the transformations but also the limits and contradictions of the process of urban change are examined. At the same time, the reorganization of the city s physical space and the beginnings of the ensanche are studied. Hygiene as an engine of urban renovation is explored by studying the period s new public infrastructure (including pipelines, sewer systems, and the use of asphalt pavement) as part of the Saneamiento of San José. The modernization of public space is analyzed through a study of the first parks, boulevards and monuments and the emergence of a new urban culture prominently displayed in these green spaces. Parks and boulevards were new public and secular places of power within the modern city, used by the elite to display and educate the urban population into the new civic and secular traditions. The study goes on to explore the idealized image of the modern city through an analysis of European and North American travelogues and photography. The new esthetic of theatrical-spectacular representation of the modern city constructed a visual guide of how to understand and come to know the city. A partial and selective image of generalized urban change presented only the bourgeois facade and excluded everything that challenged the idea of progress. The enduring patterns of spatial and symbolic exclusion built into Costa Rica s capital city at the dawn of the twentieth century shed important light on the long-term political social and cultural processes that have created the troubled urban landscapes of contemporary Latin America.

Isänmaa ja Ranska : Suomalainen frankofilia 1880-1914

In Finland the period 1880 -1914 constituted an essential phase in the creation of the great national project as well as it was a golden time of Francophilia. With Francophilia, i.e. French-mindedness, is here understood a collectively upheld strong sympathy towards France and French culture. However, the Francophilia of late nineteenth century Finland was free from apparent political intentions and remained a chosen disposition. The strength of its drive was not only based on the older European admiration of everything French, but also on the growing fascination for a novelty emerging besides the traditional influences of the Germanic culture. In Finnish society Francophilia mostly worked as an opposite force to the most confined conceptions of what was considered national ; as a consequence France came to denote more than a country and Francophilia contained an important symbolical meaning in the construction of the Finnish nation. The main tasks of the study are to introduce as the first large historical presentation of the subject a covering examination of the many descriptions of Paris-phases of assorted artists, authors, and intellectuals, to clarify the mental relationship of the Finnish intelligentsia to France prior to national independence, and finally to provide these developments with case studies of certain life paths. However, the examination is not biographical, because the starting point remains within the rhetoric arguments of Francophilia and patriotism as these appeared within the public sphere. Historical persons have thus been dealt with primarily as reflectors of the then-current French-minded mentality. Such Francophiles in Finland were first and foremost Werner Söderhjelm, Juhani Aho, L. Onerva and V. A. Koskenniemi. The networks of the Finnish cultural field are mostly displayed through these examples. In previous research the intensive relationship of Finnish artists and authors with France has not been connected with actual concepts of nationalism. The respective periods of the intellectuals in Paris have simply been viewed as devoid of ideological links with the contemporary advancement of the fatherland, or even as opposites to the patriotic pursuits in Finland. From the viewpoint of this study these now canonized creators of a Finnish culture are primarily seen as patriots and fellow countrymen, and only secondly as artists and artist s colleagues. The dissertation is constructed as both a regional survey of the idealization of France and a study of Finnish history through the mirror of Francophilia. As such France only held an instrumental role for the receiving culture, i.e. for the construction of Finland, as no "objective truths" were sought for in France. Keywords: France, francophilia, Finnishness, national project, Paris

Sairaanhoitajaksi kasvattaminen : Sairaanhoitajakoulutus ja siinä käytetyt oppikirjat Suomessa vuoteen 1967 asti

The historical development of Finnish nursing textbooks from the late 1880s to 1967: the training of nurses in the Foucauldian perspective. This study aims, first, to analyse the historical development of Finnish nursing textbooks in the training of nurses and in nursing education: what Foucauldian power processes operate in the writing and publishing processes? What picture of nursing did early nursing books portray and who were the decision makers? Second, this study also aims to analyse the processes of power in nurse training processes. The time frame extends from the early stages of nurse training in the late 1880s to 1967. This present study is a part of textbook research and of the history of professional education in Finland. This study seeks to explain how, who or what contributed the power processes involved in the writing of nursing textbooks and through textbooks. Did someone use these books as a tool to influence nursing education? The third aim of this study is to define and analyse the purpose of nurse training. Michel Foucault´s concept of power served as an explanatory framework for this study. A very central part of power is the assembling of data, the supplying of information and messages, and the creation of discourses. When applied to the training of nurses, power dictates what information is taught in the training and contained in the books. Thus, the textbook holds an influential position as a power user in these processes. Other processes in which such power is exercised include school discipline and all other normalizing processes. One of most powerful ways of adapting is the hall of residence, where nursing pupils were required to live. Trained nurses desired to separate themselves from their untrained predecessors and from those with less training by wearing different uniforms and living in separate housing units. The state supported the registration of trained nurses by legislation. With this decision the state made it illegal to work as a nurse without an authorised education, and use these regulations to limit and confirm the professional knowledge and power of nurses. Nurses, physicians and government authorities used textbooks in nursing education as tools to achieve their own purposes and principles. With these books all three groups attempted to confirm their own professional power and knowledge while at the same time limit the power and expertise of others. Public authorities sought to unify the training of nurses and the basis of knowledge in all nursing schools in Finland with similar and obligatory textbooks. This standardisation started 20 years before the government unified nursing training in 1930. The textbooks also served as data assemblers in unifying nursing practices in Finnish hospitals, because the Medical Board required all training hospitals to attach the textbooks to units with nursing pupils. For the nurses, and especially for the associations of Finnish nurses, making and publishing their own textbooks for the training of nurses was a part of their professional projects. With these textbooks, the nursing elite and the teachers tended to prepare nursing pupils’ identities for nursing’s very special mission. From the 1960s, nursing was no longer understood as a mission, but as a normal vocation. Nurses and doctors disputed this view throughout the period studied, which was the optimal relationship between theory and practice in nursing textbooks and in nurse education. The discussion of medical knowledge in nursing textbooks took place in the 1930s and 1940s. Nurses were very confused about their own professional knowledge and expertise, which explains why they could not create a new nursing textbook despite the urgency. A brand new nursing textbook was published in 1967, about 30 years after the predecessor. Keyword: nurse, nurse training, nursing education, power, textbook, Michel Foucault

Gedichte Gesammelt in Nord-Afrika zwischen dem 10. Dezember 1940 und dem 1. April 1942

Poems by Vera LaRouche compiled in North Africa between December 10, 1940 and April 1, 1942. (6p/typed)

Combined Jewish Philanthropies (Boston, Mass.) records, undated, 1865-1989 (bulk 1942-1979)

The Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Boston, Massachusetts is the oldest federated Jewish philanthropy in the United States. The current incarnation of CJP was formed in 1960, when two separate federated philanthropies – the Combined Jewish Appeal and Associated Jewish Philanthropies – merged to create a single organization dedicated to serving the needs of Boston’s Jewish community. CJP’s records contain the history of several other organizations, from the forerunners of the current Federation to the Jewish institutions supported by CJP. Their beginnings can be traced to the founding of the United Hebrew Benevolent Association (UHBA) in 1864 at the Pleasant Street Synagogue (now Temple Israel.) This collection contains meeting minutes, correspondence, photographs, scrapbooks, financial documents and ledgers, appeal information, publicity, programs, brochures and other written documents relating CJP’s history.

Juedisch-Buergerliches Leben in Koenigsberg/Pr. 1880-1945 1880-1945

M.A. Thesis for the University of Goettingen (1987).

Die letzten Lebensjahre meines Vaters Prof. Ernst Neisser 1939-1942

Description of Prof. Neisser's last years in form of a letter written by his daughter to a relative in the USA; concentrates mainly on suicide of Ernst Neisser and his cousin in 1942 to escape deportation.

Ernest W. Michel Papers, 1698, 1938-1996 (bulk 1946-1987)

This collection contains the papers of Ernest W. Michel, Holocaust Survivor Journalist and public speaker,including clippings of newspaper articles written by and about Michel, correspondence between Michel and many important Jewish and political figures and autograph files, which Michel collected. Many of these files concern Michel’s Holocaust experiences, speaking engagements, the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and Michel’s work with the United Jewish Appeal.