ABSTRACT A FOUCAULDIAN ANALYSIS OF NCLB: STUDENT DATA AS PANOPTIC SURVEILLANCE by Chris King The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; Public Law 107-110) reauthorizes and expands the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to require large amounts of student data for the purpose of academic surveillance. This study investigates the historical and philosophical components of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as a model of surveillance to identify similarities between panopticism and the rubric of collecting student data required by NCLB. All public school districts are evaluated annually for adequate yearly progress (AYP). Under the auspices of this evaluation, all students must be tested, and all results must be included in each district’s AYP calculation. All African American, Hispanic, White, economically disadvantaged, special education, and limited English proficient (LEP) students must meet the same performance and participation standards. States individually develop minimum size criteria for evaluation of student groups. High schools must meet a graduation rate standard set by the state. NCLB’s comprehensive data compilation and student tracking initiatives are consistent with previous federal education policies to conduct data surveillance on students and teachers. Similar to Jeremy Bentham’s 18th century Panopticon model of penal supervision and rehabilitation, NCLB is transforming the schoolhouse into a correction house by unveiling technologies of surveillance and power. By using Benthamian and Foucauldian philosophical analyses, this dissertation examines NCLB’s worldview of student data and tracking, specifically from student subgroups, and their effects of panoptic surveillance. This dissertation proceeds with a review of the historical context of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and Michel Foucault’s panopticism. This study recognizes various American educational reform movements from 1776 to 2002 in identifying the following panoptic disciplines: constant surveillance, hierarchical observation and categorization, and panoptic power. It considers the NCLB doctrine of data collection for student and teacher tracking purposes and presents an anticolonial analysis of NCLB’s methods of compiling and tracking student subgroup data using the works of anticolonial scholars Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, and Carter Woodson. The dissertation concludes with a synthesis of the questions and the problems presented by NCLB and the implications of this analysis for students and teachers.

ABSTRACT A FOUCAULDIAN ANALYSIS OF NCLB: STUDENT DATA AS PANOPTIC SURVEILLANCE by Chris King The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; Public Law 107-110) reauthorizes and expands the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to require large amounts of student data for the purpose of academic surveillance. This study investigates the historical and philosophical components of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as a model of surveillance to identify similarities between panopticism and the rubric of collecting student data required by NCLB. All public school districts are evaluated annually for adequate yearly progress (AYP). Under the auspices of this evaluation, all students must be tested, and all results must be included in each district’s AYP calculation. All African American, Hispanic, White, economically disadvantaged, special education, and limited English proficient (LEP) students must meet the same performance and participation standards. States individually develop minimum size criteria for evaluation of student groups. High schools must meet a graduation rate standard set by the state. NCLB’s comprehensive data compilation and student tracking initiatives are consistent with previous federal education policies to conduct data surveillance on students and teachers. Similar to Jeremy Bentham’s 18th century Panopticon model of penal supervision and rehabilitation, NCLB is transforming the schoolhouse into a correction house by unveiling technologies of surveillance and power. By using Benthamian and Foucauldian philosophical analyses, this dissertation examines NCLB’s worldview of student data and tracking, specifically from student subgroups, and their effects of panoptic surveillance. This dissertation proceeds with a review of the historical context of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and Michel Foucault’s panopticism. This study recognizes various American educational reform movements from 1776 to 2002 in identifying the following panoptic disciplines: constant surveillance, hierarchical observation and categorization, and panoptic power. It considers the NCLB doctrine of data collection for student and teacher tracking purposes and presents an anticolonial analysis of NCLB’s methods of compiling and tracking student subgroup data using the works of anticolonial scholars Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, and Carter Woodson. The dissertation concludes with a synthesis of the questions and the problems presented by NCLB and the implications of this analysis for students and teachers.

This dissertation offers an exploration of the field of normative subjectivity circulated within western fine dining traditions. I use the notion of "normative subjectivity" which derives from the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault's emphasis on the use of disciplinary repetition to mold, circumscribe, and modulate the conduct of subjects informs my own argument that fine dining spaces feature a normative regime of subjectivity centered on the hegemonic governance of a figure which I call "Culinary Man." This phrase follows from Sylvia Wynter's account of "the overrepresentation of Man," which describes the colonial field of subjectivity which revolves around a normatively white, male, and European figure of authority. Drawing from these sources, this dissertation seeks to give a theoretical analysis of the governing relationship between the chef (who embodies Culinary Man) and the fine dining brigade (the organizational unit of labor within commercial kitchens). As I argue, Culinary Man deploys a heterogeneous set of disciplinary discourses and practices which have the effect of consolidating monopolies on epistemic authority and governance. Each position within the brigade's hierarchy is subject to distinct, though related, disciplinary practices. Thus, several chapters seek to identify the specific practices pertinent to each brigade subject, while also illuminating how they fit together as a coherent hegemonic project. Additionally, a genealogy, in the style of Sylvia Wynter, is carried out to illuminate points of variance as well as continuity within the figure of Culinary Man. While the bulk of the dissertation seeks to carry out a discursive analysis of Culinary Man's disciplinary regime, there are also moves toward alternative projects which do not replicate the brigade form. The concluding chapters seek to identify where extant modes of resistance or alternative forms of culinary organization may hold the potential to move beyond the hegemonic overrepresentation of Culinary Man. / Doctor of Philosophy / Within fine dining kitchens, work is generally organized by the hierarchical division of labor known as the "brigade." As the name suggests, this formation is modeled on the military, and the chef sits at the top of the brigade's hierarchy. This dissertation explores the relationship between the governing chef and the subordinate brigade of culinary laborers within western fine dining spaces. While the image of the domineering chef is somewhat ubiquitous in popular culture, this project seeks to understand how the authority of governing chefs is rooted in practices and discourses which encourage consent among the brigade, rather than merely compliance. As I argue, the field of fine dining labor is dominated by a particular set of practices, values, and habits which become solidified as norms through repetition. These norms uphold and legitimate the figure of the brilliant, masterful, and authoritative chef (called "Culinary Man") at the expense of the brigade's subordination. Additionally, there are racialized and gendered implications, as the archetype of Culinary Man is a white, male figure. This dissertation offers an exploration of the collection of practices, norms, and discourses which "shape" members of the brigade and direct the ways in which they conduct themselves. Several of the chapters identify particular positions within the brigade's hierarchy and analyze how distinct practices mold the conduct expected of culinary workers. Additionally, a genealogy of Culinary Man explores several different variations or "genres" of this figure. While much of the dissertation endeavors to identify and theorize Culinary Man's governance over the brigade, the last two chapters feature some discussion of models which might potentially move beyond Culinary Man as a normative archetype.

In this dissertation, I disentangle the Cynical figure – one who is capable of confronting structures of power by speaking truth to power – within a Westernized, Euro-centric discourse that authorizes the Cynic as an exceptionally powerful political subjectivity. Heeding the words of Sylvia Wynter, "…the Jester's role in the pursuit of human knowledge alternates with the Priest's role—transforming heresies into new orthodoxies, the contingent into modes of the Absolute." I recover the Cynic, once sutured to a distinctly Foucauldian discursive tradition to argue Black and Brown women function as contemporary Cynics using largely a Black Feminist theoretical framework. Drawing on biomythographies written by Black and Brown women, I future a Cynical discursive tradition in which the cynic is known by a different name. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this dissertation, I explore the practice of telling the truth as a political discourse that is reserved only for a select group of people. I look at the Ancient Greek philosophical school of Cynicism to understand how someone is given permission speak truth to power and its effects. Throughout this work, I argue that the Cynical practice of speaking truth to power is exclusive and that it is not worth making space for others to speak their truth in this same practice. Using a Black feminist theoretical framework, through the works of Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick, Christina Sharpe and others, I disrupt the status quo of how the truth must be spoken in order to be heard in the political realm. Moreover, I develop a different practice of speaking truth to power by contextualizing this practice from the family kitchen table. I think about how Black and Brown women, those who are violently elided from the political realm altogether, develop their own practice of speaking truth to power from the family kitchen table space. From this context, I think about how a person develops a critical consciousness in which they are given permission to speak their truth to power. I propose that Black and Brown women embody a radical political consciousness that has the ability to disrupt the status quo, that they are not only seen and heard, but their disruption leads to political change.

This study investigates colonial, independence, and postcolonial moments to identify different modes of self-fashioning in the Jamaican landscape. It also explores the ways collective and individual senses of self, identity and sovereignty are perceived between the late nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. I assert that political processes involved in consolidating official national identities problematically reproduced hierarchies and exclusions reminiscent of the colonial period in politically independent contexts. In this regard, the cultural landscape serves multivalent purposes of proving grounds for visions of Jamaican national identity, counter-hegemonic articulations of those excluded from or marginalized by official notions of Jamaican national identity, and spaces for the invention of non-traditional modes of self-representation. I critique early nationalist projects through an examination of Sylvia Wynter's The Hills of Hebron and discuss the ways unacknowledged or unconsciously retained European cosmological elements undermine the sovereign identity they sought to construct. I also examine Michael Thelwell's The Harder they Come, Sistren's Lionheart Gal and Don Lett's film Dancehall Queen to discuss the marginalization of the working poor that persists within the newly independent relations of political power, and illustrate the ways modes of cultural self-fashioning like the ruud bwoy, or community theater emerge as spaces for negotiating self, identity, survival, and self-determination among the working class. I argue that the independence context is marked by exclusionary politics that provoke the development of more individual modes of self-fashioning, that vary between men and women, and also provide sites for counter-hegemonic discourses in opposition to nationalized discourses. Moving beyond the traditional framework of community based on heteronormative models, I examine Patricia Powell's A Small Gathering of Bones and The Pagoda to consider how queer communities are marginalized in nationalized discourses. I critique self-identity and self-fashioning within non-normative sexual communities in an analysis that traces gender and sexuality as indices of exclusionary patterns that are reproduced within nationalized identities throughout the country's history. This discussion argues that there is an institutionalized complicity between politics, culture, and religion in sustaining colonial power relations far beyond the colonial context.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 310-358). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR19767

Ambivalent Ecologies: Representations of the Nonhuman in African American Literature, 1830-1940, argues that nonhuman animals and ecological phenomena are central to the projects undertaken by African American authors from the antebellum slave narrative through the interwar period. In four chapters that focus on the Anglophone literature of nineteenth century abolition, the late nineteenth-century conjure tales of Charles W. Chesnutt, Jean Toomer’s Cane, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, I contend that there are as many differences in how these authors marshal the nonhuman as there are similarities. Following this insight, I tease out the unevenness and tensions in these representations across the tradition. Tracing the influence of literary genre and historical developments on representations of the nonhuman, I contend that these mark a site or perhaps a vector of profound ambivalence. Pushing beyond paradigms that reflexively position the work of black creative intellectuals as always already critical of Western liberal humanism, I offer a more nuanced set of close-readings that stay with the trouble of what I theorize as the ecological ambivalence that animates African American literature’s relationship toward the colonial categories the Human, or Man. Drawing on the work of Sylvia Wynter, Zakiyyah Jackson, Frantz Fanon, and others, I position this ambivalence as a key feature of the ecology of African American life.

Advances in technologies of voice profiling shed new light on questions of listening and its entanglement with antiblackness as a structuring paradigm of modernity. To contest current conceptions of listening with regards to the question of race and antiblackness while also shining light on the potentials offered by blackness, this dissertation engages listening at three distinct sites that are entangled with this modern question of voice profiling AI. In the process, this dissertation elaborates on the ethical stakes involved in listening itself. Chapter 1 excavates the way in which the ears of enslaved Black lives were ritualized. It centers an analysis of the role of the punishment of ear cropping and how this performed both a claim over slaves’ belonging and an inhibition on their freedom. Scholarship from Hebrew law aids in uncovering the meaning of the specific form of punishment. The chapter concludes by comparing the conception of slaves’ ears to Black artistic expressions such as Harriet Jacobs’s various methods of narration in Incidents of a Slave Girl and Blind Tom Wiggins’ unique use of clusters and graphic notation in Battle of Manassas, so as to demonstrate their methods of resistance and refusal to a claimed all-encompassing regime of listening. Chapter 2 engages modern notions of sound and listening. The way in which sound is theorized and engaged in modern digital technologies is entangled with the conception of what listening is and what it entails. Hermann von Helmholtz provides an axis after which sound and listening, as well as the relation between an inner world of perceptions and an outer world of sensations, has to be engaged as a question of listening as entangled in societal questions. The chapter critically elaborates alongside questions of categorical distinction in sound, such as the use of skull shapes as referents for AI listening, instrument classification systems, and the general question of the form of sound, or sound as object. The concluding Chapter 3 discusses, alongside Sylvia Wynter’s work and Roscoe Mitchell’s piece S II Examples (date) the kinds of questions we must pose in the development of modern AI listening technologies to move past antiblackness. Immanuel Kant’s theorizing of race and his influence on Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s classification of skulls relate tomodern voice profiling AI technology directly through the question of using cranial shapes. Wynter’s work challenges both a turn to varieties that do not allow the addressing of structural antiblackness, and a continuation of claims to proper knowledge on the basis of antiblackness. Ultimately, Wynter aids us in hearing Mitchell’s continual shapeshifting practice on the saxophone as a proposal towards a refiguring of our conception of sound, listening, and us.