The introduction first goes back on Jeremy Bentham’s historical scheme to highlight lesser-known traits and show how it was not limited to carceral applications, a versatility which has been reflected in literature. It then moves on to Foucault’s chapter on panopticism in _ Discipline and Punish, _ foregrounding its most influential aspects as well as others which are often overlooked. The third part focuses on the reception of Foucault’s panopticism in literary criticism, from the seminal studies of D.A. Miller and (...) John Bender to contemporary times. The fourth part deals with the influence of panopticism within the field of surveillance studies, as well as the input offered by literature for these discussions. The introduction then presents the structure of the issue and offers a summary of each of the five articles and of the final interview. (shrink)

This article offers an analysis of texts which were written in 1802-3 and published in 1812 under the title Panopticon versus New South Wales, namely Jeremy Bentham’s first two letters to Lord Pelham and A Plea for the Constitution, arguing that, in his attempt to show the superiority of his Panopticon plan over the transportation scheme, the reformer depicted New South Wales as a Gothic dystopia. ‘Gothic’ is here understood as a literary genre, an ideological term and a critical tool. (...) Bentham upset the conventional cartography of his time by showing that the ‘archaic’ or ‘barbarian’ practices that Gothic novels located in Catholic Europe were actually present in British penal policies. In addition to drawing on the rhetoric and the dichotomies which underlay the Gothic novels published during his lifetime, Bentham anticipated scenarios – such as reverse colonization and contamination – which would be explored in Victorian fiction. By extrapolating in dystopian fashion from trends which were present in the British body politic, Bentham’s Australian writings show how a historical period may be haunted by its future potentialities. (shrink)

IntroductionJamais construit, jamais occupé, le Panoptique de Bentham demeure une architecture virtuelle qu’il est possible d’interpréter, de rêver ou de « cauchemarder » avec peut-être plus de liberté que si elle s’était incarnée dans la pierre. Si d’un côté, des recherches récentes ont permis de préciser l’évolution historique de ce projet dans la pensée de Bentham, dans d’autres domaines, le Panoptique est un paradigme utilisé pour lire la littérature anglo-saxonne de la fin du XVIIIe sièc..

Introduction Grady Hendrix is an American author and journalist who is also one of the founders of the New York Asian Film Festival. Horrostör: A Novel was published in 2014 by Quirk Books, a publisher based in Philadelphia and distributed by Penguin Random House. According to its website, Quirk Books was founded in 2002 and publishes ‘a highly curated list of entertaining, enlightening, and strikingly unconventional books for adults and children in a number of genres and categories,’ which i...

Dans les grandes études d’histoire carcérale qui ont fait date dans les années 1980-1990, le projet panoptique de Jeremy Bentham occupe une place centrale, marquant le passage de la prison de l’ancien temps (lieu de passage, de brassage, de...

As the author himself notes in the prologue, the book – An Advanced Introduction to Law and Literature – seeks to “advance” the discussion. Written by Peter Goodrich, one of the leading and most prolific scholars on the topic, the work may not be suitable for first-comers to the Law and Literature movement looking for a systematic overview of the field. The latter may be found in the numerous already-existing handbooks, research guides or critical introductions. While the prologue mentions la...

Le propos est précédé par une illustration, la seule de l’ouvrage, extraite d’une Histoire de l’industrie du coton en Grande-Bretagne parue en 1835. Il s’agit de la reproduction d’un dessin représentant le processus d’impression de motifs sur du calicot. On y voit deux hommes travailler, de façon semble-t-il minutieuse, sur deux grandes machines installées dans un atelier spacieux. L’illustration est égayée par les motifs imprimés sur les pans de tissu, qui occupent une grande partie de l’esp..