updated 24 november 1999
ASSIGNMENTS | Research ....Walden Supermax ....Links
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |

### Assignment 2
Issue date:
13 September 1999

Panopticon: from surveys of�Nature to technologies of surveillance
Pinup date: 2PM, Thursday, 16 September 1999

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Darwin and Thoreau construct social and political space for the individual -- including the space of the prison -- within their respective surveys and visions of Nature.
In the "Panopticon", philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) locates the social and political space of the prison -- not within a natural history -- but�rather, within a spectacle of discipline and punishment deployed by a mechanistic, technological apparatus of surveillance.
Based on specifications detailed in excerpts from "Panopticon",� Explore Bentham's carceral paradigm through models and drawings. Contrast these diagrams to prison spaces posited by Darwin and Thoreau.

Readings |
| Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) excerpts: PANOPTICON; or The Inspection-House (1787) LETTER I. Idea of the Inspection Principle LETTER II. Plan for a Penitentiary - Inspection House

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Additional reference:
Thoreau as Botanist by Rae Angelo