RHETOR 103B Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Biopower, Michel Foucault
Document Summary
History of sexuality part v: right of death and power over life. For a long time, sovereign power was the right to decide to life and death. King decided who to put to death. Now, power is situated and exercised at the level of life, species, race and large scale phenomena of population. Example of death penalty: right of sovereign > when power became a function of administering life, more difficult to apply the death penalty. Capital punishment only for the criminal > one had right to kill those who represented a kind of biological danger to others. Power of life in two basic forms (1) body of machine. Ensured by procedures of power that characterized the disciplines: anatomo-politics of the human body (2) species body. Body imbued with mechanics of life, supervision effected through an entire series of interventions and regulatory controls.
