This thesis draws on Michel Foucault's late work on the practices of the self to ask whether the ascetic practices and patterns of action suggested by contemporary computer games, which afford players the opportunities to pursue their own self-set goals, further what might be called a 'wandering' away from ourselves, a 'transformation' or 'transfiguration' of what we are. If self-formation is now a terrain on which power and resistance plays out, it is critical to be able to identify pernicious practices that may bind us to the individualising techniques of power, as opposed to transformative ones that enable us to refuse who we are in the move towards freedom. Broaching this question leads to considerations of the implicit ethical foundations presupposed by Foucault's anti-normative ethico-aesthetics, and the limitations of its appeal to a coherence or style seemingly without rules. These considerations have implications for the way in which we understand the practices of self-constitution in computer games. I question whether there is an isomorphism between the way in which power - understood through Foucault's concept of 'governmentality' - works in the present, and the way in which computer games set the conditions under which player practices take place. We are prompted by both to develop a non-coercive relation to a 'truth' through an impetus that originates from us. Computer games are about our identification with processes, which are strengthened by the feedback loops in the game and by the mode of being we elect to adopt as a hexis. Such a structure, however, is insufficiently rigid for computer games to produce discrete subjectivities, and analyses of them must be sensitive as to whether there are any systematic concatenation of player responses. To this end, I suggest a framework, based on Foucault's orthogonal understanding of power-subject, for uncovering the 'rationalities' within games, which are the conditions under which players' practices of the self take place, and which give rise to certain practices of self-constitution over others. It depends on our being able to find or infer player typologies, which are then analysed for their similar patterns of action. This framework is applied to a case study: levelling-up in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. On the basis of six typologies, a prominent structure of calculative anticipation and deferral emerges, as well as the existence of what is called a super-instrumental approach. In order to disambiguate these findings with respect to their transformative potential, I turn to the transcendental signifiers in Foucault's work and consider the practices of the self as seeking a balance between reason and sense - they are revisited through the lens of Schiller's play drive. This concretises the argument that if the practices of the self are thought capable of moving us towards freedom, we must assume the existence of non-cognitive faculties within us that, when engaged, enable us to be able to distinguish between positive and pernicious self-formation. Given that these judgments cannot be cognitively communicated, we ought to refrain from prescriptivism, yet do have recourse to standards. However, our efforts to cognitively understand this aesthetic interplay between reason and sense are certainly not without importance.

Esta dissertação é fruto de uma pesquisa realizada com o objetivo de examinar enunciados produzidos por professoras dos Anos Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental sobre uma escola bilíngue para alunos surdos e o ensino de matemática. Os aportes teóricos que sustentam a investigação são as teorizações de Michel Foucault e Ludwig Wittgenstein, principalmente aqueles presentes em na obra Investigações Filosóficas. Além disso, foram utilizados conceitos do campo dos Estudos Surdos, conforme descrito por Carlos Skliar, Maura Corcini Lopes e Adriana Thoma. O material de pesquisa examinado consiste em: narrativas de quatro professoras dos Anos Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental da escola investigada, geradas em entrevistas, documentos oficiais e Registros de Chamada da instituição. A estratégia analítica utilizada para examinar esse material orientou-se pela análise do discurso, na perspectiva de Michel Foucault. O exercício analítico realizado a partir do uso das ferramentas teóricas selecionadas mostrou que a escola de ouvintes e a escola de surdos têm fortes semelhanças de família, responsáveis pela disciplinarização dos corpos e dos saberes e condução das condutas dos alunos. Também foi possível identificar que tanto a escola de surdos como a de ouvintes se ocupam da produção de sujeitos disciplinados, normalizados a partir de um modelo a ser seguido, contudo, no caso dessa primeira, com um referencial de normalidade pautado em saberes provenientes da comunidade surda. Na disciplina de Matemática, especificamente, foi identificado que as semelhanças de família entre o ensino de surdos e ouvintes é ainda mais forte, visto que este campo de conhecimento, segundo os dados empíricos, pode ser trabalhado visualmente. Percebeu-se que a imperatividade do uso dos materiais concretos nas aulas de Matemática também está presente, porém com uma outra justificativa: a de que o aluno surdo é um sujeito visual. Assim, pode-se pensar que os jogos de linguagem que constituem a Matemática Escolar seguem predominantes, mesmo nas escolas de surdos, com sua gramática pautada por formalismo, ordem e assepsia. / This dissertation is the result of a research carried out with the objective of examining statements made by elementary school teachers about a bilingual school for deaf students and the teaching of mathematics. The theoretical contributions that support the investigation are the theories of Michel Foucault and Ludwig Wittgenstein, mainly those present in the work Philosophical Investigations. In addition, concepts from the field of Deaf Studies were used, as described by Carlos Skliar, Maura Corcini Lopes and Adriana Thoma. The research material examined consists of: narratives of four Elementary School teachers of the school investigated, generated in interviews, official documents and some observation records from the institution. The analytical strategy used to examine this material was guided by discourse analysis, from Michel Foucault's perspective. The analytical exercise based on the use of the selected theoretical tools showed that the school of hearers and the school of the deaf have strong family resemblances, responsible for disciplining the bodies and the knowledge and conducting the students' behaviors. It was also possible to identify that both the school of deaf and the hearers are concerned with the production of disciplined subjects, normalized from a model to be followed, however, in the case of this first, with a referential of normality based on knowledge from the deaf community. In the discipline of Mathematics, specifically, it was identified that the family similarities between the teaching of deaf and hearers are even stronger, since this field of knowledge, according to the empirical data, can be worked visually. It was noticed that the imperative use of concrete materials in Mathematics classes is also present, but with another justification: that the deaf student is a visual subject. Thus, one may think that the language games that make up School Mathematics remain predominant, even in schools of the deaf, with its grammar marked by formalism, order and asepsis.

A genealogical framework highlights the important role sexuality has played in constructing the current label of intellectual disability (ID). The genealogical framework is meant to replace the social, medical, and/or rights-based model(s) that have dominated social work and social services working in the disability field. With this framework, or perspective, I use a Foucaultian discourse analysis to read through seminal texts regarding person-centered practice. Person-centered practice is the foremost intervention used in social work, and other disciplines, to work with people labeled with intellectual disability. My research questions focus on what is revealed about ID in PCP through a genealogical framework and what implications do these discoveries hold for sexuality education and social services, including social workers? Predetermined concepts taken from the genealogical framework are used in the Foucaultian discourse analysis. These concepts (subject, government, biopower, and normalization) provide insight into how ID has been constructed and maintained through the practice of person-centered processes. Paradoxes emerge throughout the analysis, providing space for productive resistance by professionals working in sexuality education and social services to improve equity for people labeled with intellectual disability, specifically regarding their sexuality and healthy expression of it.

Abstract ALWAYS ALREADY IMPRISONED: THE PANOPTIC POWER OF CAPITALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1900-1940 By Andrew Blair Spencer, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019 Director: Dr. Richard Fine, Professor, Department of English By applying the theories of control that Michel Foucault outlines in Discipline and Punish to the capitalist system, I argue that capitalism functions in much the same was as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon in that it perpetually imprisons individuals who live under its purview. As I see it, capitalism works on two different tracks to exploit the human condition in order to keep those living under its purview perpetually trapped within an endless cycle of working to acquire commodities, both for our personal survival and our personal indulgence. Advertising assumes the role of Foucauldian discourse in this model. In the United States, advertising became a commercial force in the mid-nineteenth century; by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was a fully-fledged profession that worked to fuel the bourgeoning commercial culture that was beginning to manifest itself in all areas of American life. By creating needs and desires in the minds of consumers, advertisers were able to dictate consumer behavior, thereby further locking Americans into the capitalist Panopticon. This theoretical base becomes the foundation upon which I build my explication of fourteen representative American novels written during the period 1900-1940. I offer in-depth discussions of individual novels, paying particular attention to the ways in which authors interrogate the capitalist system in light of the image of the United States as a land of opportunity. The selection of works includes both male and female authors, as well as white and African-American writers. Characters range from very poor to exorbitantly wealthy, and include multiple examples of middle-class life, too; the collection of works I have chosen includes both native-born and immigrant populations, as well. This wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, races, and nationalities provides a comprehensive picture of how all-encompassing the capitalist Panopticon is in American society.

This is a thesis presented on the position of the distance education student at a distance education university in the present era. Traditionally, the distance education student has been a sort of Cinderella: marginalised, being constructed as some form of lesser version of the on campus one. A largely invisible part of the higher education system in Australia since 1911, the distance education student has really only come to be foregrounded in university education discourses from 1983 onwards. It was not until then that the distance education student emerged from ‘hidden pools’ identified by Karmel (1975), and since then the construction of this student has undergone a number of modifications, mapped in this thesis. At the same time university education itself has undergone a series of modifications, not least of which has been its taking on mercantilist overtones as investments made by students in their own careers and professional development. The modifications, also mapped in this thesis, have progressed to the stage where the construction of the old distance education student is now one of a flexible learner in a mercantilist system of university education. The notion of distance education and the distance education student has undergone significant shifts, redefinitions and constructions, which are tracked in this thesis. My research has focussed on a number of pertinent questions, based on a study of Deakin University and its practice since its establishment. The thesis draws on a number of works which have been informed by those of Foucault, and I have framed my research questions accordingly. I have asked why and how Deakin University came into being as a distance education provider at tertiary level. What were the conditions of its establishment and progression in relation to the political events, economic practices and communication technology in use over time? To consider such questions, I needed to analyse the changes that I had seen occurring in the context of wider restructurings in university education. These had occurred in the context of government forging a closer interconnectedness between education and national economic aims and objectives at the same time as it demanded greater productivity in the face of commercial and industrial sector pushes for applied knowledge. Poststructuralist philosophical developments offer tools to explore not only questions of power, but the practical outcomes of questions of power, and how the complicity of individuals is established. This thesis explores ways in which such considerations helped to shape the changing constructions of the distance education student from a marginalised, disadvantaged and under-represented participant in higher education to a privileged, well catered for and advantaged learner. These same considerations are used to explore ways in which they have helped to shape university distance education courses from a perceived second-rate form of higher education to a prototype that better captures the essential elements of learning for what has been styled in a postmodern world as the Information Age. Overlaid on these considerations is a changing view of the economics of such provision of higher education. It is anticipated that this thesis will contribute to developing new understandings of the construction of subjectivities in relation to the distance education university student specifically, and to the university student generally, in the postmodern world. The implications of this examination are not inconsiderable for students and academics in a self-styled Information Society.

<p>Den föreliggande texten är en utifrån ett socialkonstruktionistisk och relativistiskt perspektiv baserad undersökning av relativismens och realismens skilda ontologier. Texten argumenterar för giltigheten i en socialkonstruktionistisk förståelse av det sociala och framvisar ett antal framträdande problem med realismens <em>Weltanschauung</em>. Relaterat till detta behandlas en diskursteoretisk  syn på sociala fenomen tillsammans med etnometodologiskt och foucauteanskt inriktade perspektivs olika uppfattningar om valet av relevant kontext vid samhällsvetenskapliga analyser. Vidare genomförs en diskurspsykologisk läsning av en tidsskriftsartikel, en läsning som framför allt exemplifierar problematiken med realismens konstruktion av verkligheten som objektiv och självframträdande. Slutligen görs i textens avslutande del ett försök att fördjupa den socialkonstruktionistiska kritiken av realismen, framför allt i syfte att antyda en möjlighet att bryta dualismen <em>autonom verklighet–konstruerad verklighet</em> samt utstaka riktningen för en motsättningarnas sociologi.</p>

Les présents travaux se veulent une contribution pour comprendre et dénouer la crise actuelle que traverse le management stratégique et dont témoignent, notamment, les reproches de stérilité ou d'imposture que s'adressent réciproquement consultants, chercheurs et dirigeants. Notre investigation a porté sur les conditions de construction du management stratégique en tant que discours, au cours des années 1955-1975, à l'aide de la méthode archéologique de Michel Foucault. Cette méthode conduit à dégager un certain nombre d'invariants, à la fois sources de la fécondité initiale du management stratégique, mais aujourd'hui freins à ses possibilités de renouvellement. L'examen minutieux des productions écrites de tous ceux qui, en France, visent à décrire, théoriser ou régler le management stratégique – acteurs ici nommés stratégistes - révèle un corps de règles de formation, dont les principales sont les suivantes :  Des contraintes de formation des objets, dont notamment la disjonction indépassable - mais jamais fondée ni même réfléchie - entre un domaine d'objets du choix stratégique ou stratégie-type et un domaine d'objets du processus stratégique ou processus-type. Ce constat explique et renforce l'observation analogue faite par DERY quant à un échantillon de productions américaines des années 1980-1990.  Des contraintes de formation des modalités d'énonciation, dont notamment une spécificité française, par laquelle un emplacement institutionnel académique interdit toute prise de position normative substantielle sur le management stratégique de l'entreprise.  Des contraintes de formation des concepts, dont notamment le recours obligatoire à une façon de s'exprimer que nous avons nommée texture de stratification. Cette texture de stratification s'avère indispensable pour permettre au dirigeant de prétendre embrasser une totalité de facteurs de profit/croissance de l'entreprise, à partir d'un nombre extrêmement réduit de paramètres de décision.  Des contraintes de formation des théories enfin, qui se traduisent notamment par un rendez-vous manqué entre le management stratégique d'un côté et une démarche intitulée praxéologie de l'autre. En conclusion finale, il est proposé une exploitation de cette grammaire génératrice du management stratégique sous la forme d'un éventail de transgressions des règles. On précise et concrétise de la sorte un projet de MARTINET sous la forme de directives d'in-discipline visant à renouveler les conditions de production du discours stratégiste et ainsi à dénouer la crise initialement constatée.

<p>Högt presterande tjejer i gymnasieskolan erbjuds positioner som ger dem ett högt feminiserat kulturellt kapital men att de presterar bra behöver inte betyda att de är fria från sitt könshabitus och därmed mer jämställda. Jag har följt tretton tjejer på gymnasiekolans språkliga inriktning och studerat deras vardag i undervisningssituationer samt lyssnat till deras egen syn på sina prestationer. De aspekter jag särskilt lagt vikt vid är hur det feminina kapitalet reproduceras genom könshabitus, symboliskt våld samt det androcentriska synsättet. För att studera deras livsvärld har jag använt den etnografiska metoden och presenterar min empiri i form av en narrativ berättelse. Mitt resultat visar att tjejerna är framgångsrika och kompetenta men eftersom de erbjuds vissa subjektspositioner utifrån skolans förväntningar och utifrån det androcentriska heteronomin är deras höga prestationer dock ett feminiserat kapital.</p> / <p>High achieving girls at upper secondary school are given positions that give them a high feminized cultural capital, however, their high achievement does not translate into a position free from gender habitus. I followed thirteen girls at upper secondary school with language as major in their lifeworld in the classroom. I have also been listening to their own stories about their achievements. I have especially put notice into how the feminine capital is reproduced thru gender habitus, symbolic violence and the androcentric heteronomy. Furthermore, I have used the ethnographic method in order to study their everyday life in school and I present my data as a narrative story. My result shows that high achieving girls are highly competent and successful in the discourse of the school, however, the expectations of the school and the androcentric heteronomy offer them certain subject positions which make their high achievements a feminized capital.</p>

The main aim of this dissertation is to examine the different childhood discourses permeating Swedish children’s cinema. This is done through close readings of three films that, each in their own way, play an important role in the history of this tradition: THE CHILDREN OF FROSTED MOUNTAIN (Rolf Husberg, 1945), THE CHILDREN OF BULLERBY VILLAGE (Olle Hellbom, 1960) and ELVIS! ELVIS! (Kay Pollak, 1977). Other subjects analysed are media debates about children’s film from the periods in which the films were produced, as well as official reports on the same subject. Taken as a whole, these elements form a significant body of material, describing the notions of children and childhood, as well as ideas around children’s film as medium, that predominated in Swedish society at three given moments in the 20th century. The study shows, that the most striking characteristic is that ever since 1945, when the first film specifically made for children was produced in Sweden, such films have been created with the intention of ‘benefiting’ the young audience. This ‘cinema of best intentions’, in turn, contains a number of attributes that are not always as unequivocally positive as they might initially seem. One of the main starting points for this exploration comes from modern childhood studies, according to which every given time and culture has its own complex of ideas, understandings and representations of children and childhood. Another central theoretical source is Michel Foucault. His ideas of power and knowledge, discipline and oppression, as well as his methodology, permeate this study. From this point of view, there is an aspect of ‘best intentions’ children’s cinema that can be seen as imposing ‘the oppression of benevolence.’ The closing discussion shows how the Swedish children’s film, today as always, is inhibited by factors such as faithfulness to the written original, fear of upsetting the young audience and commercial demands.

Den föreliggande texten är en utifrån ett socialkonstruktionistisk och relativistiskt perspektiv baserad undersökning av relativismens och realismens skilda ontologier. Texten argumenterar för giltigheten i en socialkonstruktionistisk förståelse av det sociala och framvisar ett antal framträdande problem med realismens Weltanschauung. Relaterat till detta behandlas en diskursteoretisk  syn på sociala fenomen tillsammans med etnometodologiskt och foucauteanskt inriktade perspektivs olika uppfattningar om valet av relevant kontext vid samhällsvetenskapliga analyser. Vidare genomförs en diskurspsykologisk läsning av en tidsskriftsartikel, en läsning som framför allt exemplifierar problematiken med realismens konstruktion av verkligheten som objektiv och självframträdande. Slutligen görs i textens avslutande del ett försök att fördjupa den socialkonstruktionistiska kritiken av realismen, framför allt i syfte att antyda en möjlighet att bryta dualismen autonom verklighet–konstruerad verklighet samt utstaka riktningen för en motsättningarnas sociologi.