abstract: This thesis examines the rhetorical relationship between migrant death and American culture, with an emphasis on how postmortem treatment of the deceased gives shape to anti-migrant attitudes. By isolating one instance of death on the border and considering the discourse that ensued in the following two months, this research assesses mechanisms of a rhetoric of death (necrorhetoric) as they relate to sociopolitical constructions of the migrant. The political apparatus of the State as a natural extension of biopower confers upon it the authority to produce sacred life or bare life (homo sacer). This process of production creates conditions of being which precede the potential to kill without allegation of murder, constructs the content of sovereign power, and results in a social sense-making, or public doxa, that informs cultural values and justifies collective attitudes. As the process is perfected, meticulous and calculated demonstrations of force become a crucial exercise of sovereignty. Efforts to enforce and maintain control of the border develop into increasingly streamlined methods, placing the state on an incremental trajectory of power that inaugurates ritualized and state sanctioned violence. The aggrieved take on a sociopolitical role that renders their lives less than fully human, allowing further alienation and segregation to occur. The desire to maintain sovereign power is the typifying force around which United States history has been shaped, and this desire continues to inform contemporary American policy. Analysis of legal, presidential, and news documents pertaining to the deaths of Oscar Martinez Ramirez and his twenty-three-month-old daughter, Valeria, reveals a network of rhetorical maneuvering that gives evidence of a necropolitical environment defined by its intentional and obscure brutality. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis English 2020

dissertation thesis: Construction of motherhood and feminity in the three generations Author: Mgr. Romana Marková Volejníčková This dissertation aims to analyze the norms of "good" motherhood, discourses, and social practices related to these norms, and their connection and interrelationship with the issue of agency and women's/mothers' free choice under specific conditions over the course of three defined periods. In particular, in this study, I focused on the prevalent conditions (be it legislation, i.e. family and social policies, expert discourses in the field of psychology, demography, pediatrics, etc., but also societal expectations of women within family and employment) during the three defined periods. I analyzed how individual standards of "good" motherhood and "proper" child care are defined and conceived under these circumstances, in which the interviewed mothers carried out their motherhood projects. Furthermore, I focused on what choices mothers could make in these normative conditions, what choices they considered available to them and realistic in each one period, and whether some of the mothers' personal traits may have bolstered or diminished their ability to make informed choices concerning their motherhood project. In the three periods examined, the manifestations of biopower...

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Aux confluences historiques et conceptuelles de la modernité, de la technologie, et del’« humain », les textes de notre corpus négocient et interrogent de façon critique lespossibilités matérielles et symboliques de la prothèse, ses aspects phénoménologiques etspéculatifs : du côté subjectiviste et conceptualiste avec une philosophie de laconscience, avec Merleau-Ponty ; et de l’autre avec les épistémologues du corps ethistoriens de la connaissance Canguilhem et Foucault. Le trope prometteur de laprothèse impacte sur les formations discursives et non-discursives concernant lareconstruction des corps, là où la technologie devient le corrélat de l’identité. Latechnologie s’humanise au contact de l’homme, et, en révélant une hybridité supérieure,elle phagocyte l’humain du même coup.Ce travail d’anthropologie bioculturelle (Andrieu, 1993; Andrieu, 2006; Andrieu,2007a), au croisement d’une sociologie des sciences (Latour, 1989), ou encore d’uneanthropologie des sciences (Hakken, 2001), se propose en tant qu’exemple de lacontribution potentielle que l’anthropologie biologique et culturelle peut rendre à lamédecine reconstructrice et que la médecine reconstructrice peut rendre à la plastique del’homme ; l’anthropologie biologique nous concerne dans la transformation biologiquedu corps humain, par l’outil de la technologie, tant dans son histoire de la reconstructionmécanique et plastique, que dans son projet d’augmentation bionique. Nous établironsune continuité archéologique, d’une terminologie foucaldienne, entre les deux pratiques.Nous questionnons les postulats au sujet des relations nature/culture, biologie/contextesocial, et nous présentons une approche définitionnelle de la technologie, pierreangulaire de notre travail théorique. Le trope de la technologie, en tant qu’outil adaptatifde la culture au service de la nature, opère un glissement sémantique en se plaçant auservice d’une biologie à améliorer. Une des clés de notre recherche sur l’augmentationdes fonctions et de l’esthétique du corps humain réside dans la redéfinition même de cesrelations ; et dans l’impact de l’interpénétration entre réalité et imaginaire dans laconstruction de l’objet scientifique, dans la transformation du corps humain.Afin de cerner les enjeux du discours au sujet de l’« autoévolution » des corps, lesthéories évolutionnistes sont abordées, bien que ne représentant pas notre spécialité.Dans le cadre de l’autoévolution, et de l’augmentation bionique de l’homme, la7somation culturelle du corps s’exerce par l’usage des biotechnologies, en ruptureépistémologique de la pensée darwinienne, bien que l’acte d’hybridation évolutionnistesoit toujours inscrit dans un dessein de maximisation bionique/génétique du corpshumain. Nous explorons les courants de la pensée cybernétique dans leurs actions detransformation biologique du corps humain, de la performativité des mutilations. Ainsitechnologie et techniques apparaissent-elles indissociables de la science, et de sonconstructionnisme social. / Situated at the historical and conceptual crossroads of modernity, technology and the“human”, this thesis will negotiate and critique the material and symbolic possibilities ofthe prosthesis, together with its phenomenological and speculative aspects. This workwill be undertaken on the one hand from a subjectivist point of view, using Merleau-Ponty and his conceptualist philosophy of consciousness; and on the another from aviewpoint based on epistemologists of the body and historians of knowledge such asCanguilhem, and Foucault. The promising trope of the prosthesis has an impact ondiscursive and non-discursive structures related to the reconstruction of the body, wheretechnology becomes the correlate of identity.This work in Biological Anthropology (Andrieu, 1993, 2006, 2007), interwining withSociology of Sciences (Latour, 1989) and Anthropology of Sciences (Hakken, 2001), isproposed as an example of the potential contribution which biological and culturalanthropology can make to reconstructive medicine and which reconstructive medecinecan make to human corporeality ; Biological Anthropology allows us to study theprocess of the human body’s biological modification, via technology and theincorporation of biomaterial into the body, through the medical history of mechanicaland plastic reconstruction, and through the cybernetic project of bionic augmentation.An archeological continuity, to use Foucault’s terminology, will be established betweenboth practices.We will question the postulates at stake in the relationships between nature and culture,biology and social context, and will present as a cornerstone of our theoretical work awide range of definitional approaches. The trope of technology as an evolutionaryadaptative tool of culture in the service of nature allows a semantic slide whereby itbecomes a tool to improve one’s biology. One of the keys of our research into thetransformation of the human body in medical practices is the very redefinition of thoserelationships; another is the impact of the interpenetration of reality and imaginary in theconstruction of the scientific object and the transformation of the human body.8In order to locate what is at stake in the discourse on “auto-evolution”, evolutionarytheories are tackled, albeit from a non-specialist outlook. In the context of autoevolutionand bionic augmentation of the human, the cultural somatic modification ofthe body

Throughout the existence of the United States there have been multiple ways to seek healthcare insurance, and healthcare services and treatment. As the country developed a system in which healthcare was distributed was created. As such, this system has created societal divisions and has caused certain people to be excluded from gaining access to healthcare insurance and treatment. From these divisions, certain stigmas and stereotypes have been created about the type of person that does not have access to healthcare. With certain historical reforms in the U.S. healthcare system being currently implemented, the healthcare system is to change dramatically. However, certain people are still being excluded from gaining access to healthcare insurance and healthcare services. The following thesis, based on research which was conducted from April to July 2014 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, explores the manner in which recent developments and changes within the healthcare system of the United States inhibits the city’s residents from obtaining basic health care. By focusing on medical encounters, this thesis focuses on how agencies of power retain control of the body, and those that seek access to healthcare. This thesis also explores the opinion of the uninsured patients by those who volunteer at The Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, which is an organization that offers free healthcare services while acting as political advocates.

United Nations peacekeeping has been distinguished as a bringer of peace and stability to countries plagued by war and insecurity. However, reports since the 1990s of sexual exploitations by peacekeeping personnel have tainted these accomplishments. At the same time as these reports started to surface there was an internal development within the UN where the security discourse went from being state focused to being focused on securing the population’s security and health. This new trend was established in the United Nations Development Programme in 1994 as Human Security and laid the ground for the structure of the peacekeeping operations. This study asks the question how these exploits can occur in a discursive context where the population’s welfare and health is the reference of intervention. By examining the following representative cases: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR), it can be seen how human security expresses a discursive reproduction of two different kinds of power: biopower and sovereign power. Through an analysis of the discourse in documents relating to the interventions it can be seen how these expressions of power creates a contextual environment where the sexual exploitations can take place.

Frank Herbert’s Dune is generally recognized as the best-selling science fiction novel of all time. While it is commonly referred to as a novel of environmental characteristics, this essay investigates the depiction of society and how the power dynamics in this far future setting are presented. I argue that Dune’s portrayal of power within the state apparatuses of the ideological and repressive kind are to be related to issues and concerns that were observable within the state powers of America and the west during the decades of 1950 and 60. By using the concepts and theories of Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault, I claim that the centralized ideology found within the whole state apparatus of Dune endangers the freedoms of the individual in ways that can be related to its contemporary real-world setting. The first part of the essay is an exploratory investigation in how power is being expressed within the two institutions of the military and the church, as well as how the protagonist deals with the burden of authority. This is analyzed in terms of Althusser’s arguments on the reproduction of ideology and the Foucauldian concepts of biopolitics and disciplinary expressions. The second part revolves around a historicist approach, namely how these expressions within the novel are related to the contemporary setting of the United States and its western neighbours. This latter analysis addresses the foreign and domestic policy of the western powers and how, I argue, these are exemplified to an extent within the pages of the novel. This discussion shows how centralized power is presented as an issue due to the influence of ideology, how the different institutions that we perceive as secular and independent become tools for social injustice. Such instances revolve around the subtle insertion of religious values in state affairs and how imperialist intervention is legitimized by the defense of economic and cultural interests, but also how societies are prone to react in the presence of charismatic leaders. Apart from this I also emphasize how the status and subsequent influential significance of Dune have come to play an important part in the development of its genre and how its capabilities of social commentary have been vital to the emergence of “soft” science fiction.

[pt] Essa dissertação explora a problemática do poder na obra de Michel Foucault. A partir de duas formas antigas de poder - pastoral e soberano - buscou-se traçar o nascimento e o desenvolvimento das estratégias de biopoder na modernidade. Nos tempos atuais, o biopoder encontrou novas possibilidades de atuação. Examinamos, então, a atual sociedade de controle, conforme Deleuze a descreve. / [en] This dissertation explores the problematic of power in Michel Foucault s work. Starting by two ancient forms - pastoral and sovereign power - we studied the dawn and development of biopower strategies in modern times. Nowadays, biopower has encountered new performance possibilities. We examine then the strategies of the current society of control, as Deleuze describes it.

A relação dos sujeitos com a saúde, em seus variados sentidos, não é uma dinâmica somente dos tempos atuais; é um processo histórico, atravessado por múltiplas forças que se tensionam continuamente, produzindo diferentes saberes e práticas no campo da saúde em contínua operação. Na contemporaneidade, esta relação é também composta por um outro elemento, caracterizado por um conjunto de movimentos frenéticos em direção a um ideal previdenciário de saúde, que envolve uma combinatória de cálculos, ações e intenções no presente, somado à produtividade do passado. Um empreendimento que está comumente atrelado aos saberes científicos que atualizam continuamente os saberes e práticas do campo da saúde com suas incessantes \'descobertas\', ou seja, um movimento espaço-temporal de produção de saúde que se direciona e se conecta aos preceitos de uma determinada forma de existência - ser saudável. Este empreendimento atual é o que podemos chamar de uma \'nova saúde\' - que não visa substituir nenhuma outra concepção de saúde - à qual, efeito de uma sociedade capitalista atravessada por um biopoder atualizado, produz, a partir de um plano comum e naturalizado de hiperprodutividade, não somente as antigas estruturas subjetivas, como também modulações contínuas de subjetivação. Contudo, ao passo que esta \'nova saúde\' é sustentada por promessas tecnocientíficas de ampliação temporal no espaço vital, é justamente pela produtividade incessante no espaço-tempo presente que poderíamos adquirir uma mais-valia de vida futura. Tal paradoxo nos lança a problematizar o caráter naturalizado e \'positivo\' que este plano comum de produção adquire: onde estão os outros tantos elementos e movimentos que não estão dados de antemão naquele plano naturalizado e que podemos, sim, lançar mão para operar e construirmos uma outra saúde, singular; uma saúde. / The relationship of the subject with health, in your different senses, is not only a dynamic of the present days; is a historic process, crossed by multiplied forces that continuously tensioned, producing different knowledge and practices in the health field in continually operation. Nowadays, this relationship is composed of another element, characterized by a set of frenetic movements toward a welfare concept of health, involving a sum of calculations, actions and intentions these days, in addition the productivity of the past. An enterprise that is commonly linked to scientific knowledge that continuously update the knowledge and the field of health practices with their incessant discoveries, that is, a health production spatio-temporal motion that drives and connects to the precepts of a particular form of existence - be healthy. This current enterprise is what we call \'new health\' -which aims not replace any other conception of health - effect of a capitalist society crossed by an updated biopower, can produce, from a common plan of naturalized hiperproductivity, more than subjective old molds, but also continuous modulations subjectivation. However, while this \'new health\' is supported by technoscientific promises of temporal expansion in the living space, it is precisely the incessant productivity in the current space-time that we could acquire an improvement for future life. This paradox in launches to question the character naturalized and \' positive \' that this common plan gets: where are so many elements and movements that are not given beforehand that plan and that we can resort to operate and build another health , singular; a health.