Abstract

[The touch of the real. The New Historicism and the power of the psychiatric real in Foucault] What is the meaning of “touch of the real”? This paper connects the new historicist Greenblatt’s phrase to Foucault’s use of the term real during his lecture course on psychiatric power. According to New Historicism, influenced by the French philosopher’s thought, representation links to reality; but this reality is imbued with power relations. Throughout his course, Foucault repeteadly argues that therapeutic asylum imposes on subjectified bodiesthe reality of power and the power of reality thanks to a disciplinary technology. The constant visibility produces individuals also in other fields of the social and institutional life, in which the Panopticon principle is effective. The real springs from this mechanism and its representation.