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Musings on Foucault, Power, and Resistance

In response to my professor's question:

Foucault writes, “We must not look for who has
power . . . and who is deprived of it . . . HS, 99).
Oppression is real: men oppress women; capital
oppresses labor. Is Foucault saying that there are
no seats of power and places of the oppressed in
a given society? Is he also stating that directly
resisting oppression is futile?

I am still trying to find a good way to articulate clearly what Foucault's argument about power is. The example that keeps sticking in my mind is this: If power is possessed by a group or entity such as "men" or "capital," then history would have been quite different; I imagine we would have had one group in power (royalty) and they would always have had the power and always will have it. Instead, we've seen many dictators and others come to positions of authority using unorthodox means. My impression is that this is an example of what Foucault means when he says that "power is exercised from innumerable points" (p. 94). However, it is not easy for me to use that example with confidence, because in The History of Sexuality, Foucault's pattern has been to make definitive statements such as "Power is not something that is acquired, seized, or shared" (p. 94, which would seem to refute my example) and then to qualify these claims: "Are there no great radical ruptures, massive binary divisions, then? Occasionally, yes. But more often one is dealing with mobile and transitory points of resistance [...]" (p. 96). More to the point, in the quotation above, Foucault suggests that we should not "look for who has power," but that we should look at the "process" of power, how it is exercised and perpetuated. I would argue that Foucault is not saying there are no positions of power and positions of oppression, but, as Jana Sawicki has argued in Disciplining Foucault, "[Foucault] does not deny that the juridico-discursive model of power describes one form of power. He merely thinks that it does not capture those forms of power that make centralized, repressive forms of power possible, namely, the myriad of power relations at the microlevel of society" (p. 20). It is clear, then, that Foucault is saying that there are seats of power and oppressed groups, but he is more interested in the subtleties and complexities of power. To put groups in a binary relation is reductive; for example, to say that men oppress women is to give those categories a monolithic quality and ignore intersections such as race and class and to put blinders on by focusing on one particular phenomenon, such as some radical feminists' critiques of pornography as the locus of men's oppression of women. Some women, in fact, are more able to exercise power than some men.

Quick Knitting Post before 4Cs

I haven't posted about knitting in a while, but boy, have I been doing a lot of it. I recently finished a cushion cover with this cuddly-soft plush yarn; this photo doesn't do it justice:

But it has been getting some use, at least:






Now I'm working on a baby blanket. I just used up a skein of the blue yarn and am now starting a pink stripe:



After this one, though, I'm going to start making bright-colored baby blankets. I'm done with pastels! I have some very soft bright acrylic/wool blend yarn that I just bought, and I think that in addition to the blankets I'll try my hand at knitting baby hats. I saw a very cute yellow one in Stitch'n'Bitch, Debbie Stoller's fantastic knitting handbook.


UPDATE: Tonight I learned how to do the double cast-on! When I first learned, I was taught the knitting on method, so I'm excited. Since lurking on the knitting communities on Orkut, I've noticed that there are a lot of yarn snobs (I mean it affectionately!). Acrylic yarn is the most maligned, particularly the Red Heart Super Saver variety. I happen to have a big skein of just that, and in my shame I'm going to use it as practice yarn. Everyone should have that, right? I want to practice my seed stitch, which looks like this (this is not mine, by the way! It's from about.com):



I'm not getting the hang of it yet.

Most Common Prelim Mistakes?

Hey, I'm wondering: What are the most common mistakes graduate students make on the preliminary exams? I gather that one big problem is lack of clarity in the explication of theory. Is that the case? I just took a midterm which was designed to be a kind of dry run of the 2-hour, in-house prelim and my professor liked my essay because he thought it was clear and I used a lot of examples to explain what Burke was saying. What else besides using examples and clear, plain language can I do to pass the prelims? One person advised me not to talk about how I'm using theorist X in my work, but just to demonstrate my understanding of the theory.

Mass Extinction Not Inevitable

But I'd say it's likely. How depressing:

Two recent studies suggest that the Earth is experiencing its sixth great extinction. Although that's a bad thing, it's not a done deal. A Q & A with conservation biologist Stuart Pimm by Stephen Leahy. [Wired]

Dude, who put a screw in YOUR spring roll?

The day before yesterday, after an all-around abysmal experience flying with US Airways which involved a missed connecting flight (it was their fault but they were still RUDE as could be about it), a flight attendant from hell, and deferred checked luggage that I had to go back to the airport to get (note to self: Never check luggage again), a friend and I went out for Thai food at one of our favorite restaurants. We ordered spring rolls as an appetizer, and as I bit eagerly into one, I felt something hard. I looked, and there was a SCREW in my spring roll!! Of all things! Kind of like this but shorter and not pointed:




They didn't even give us our meal for free. They brought us more spring rolls, didn't charge us for those, and apologized, but we had to pay for our entrees. What a terrible day it was. Anyway, as a result, I'm trying to introduce "Who put a screw in YOUR spring roll?" as a variant of "Who pissed in YOUR Cheerios?" So start using it; I haven't been that successful so far in introducing expressions. Some time ago I tried to get people to use the term "stool sample" as a negative term for a person, like "That guy at US Airways was a total stool sample." You don't have to curse or invoke a gendered slur that way.

Trump Seeks to Trademark "You're Fired"

It's true:

Trump said he intended to emblazon "You're Fired" on games and casino services, and "You're Fired! Donald J. Trump" on clothing.



Other tyrannical bosses won't have to alter their vocabulary if the application wins approval, a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office official said, as it will only protect those specific uses.

The article goes on to say that "three other applications for "You're fired" have been filed." I must admit I am a HUGE fan of the show (Go Amy! And if not Amy, then Troy!), but there's no way I'd wear a t-shirt with "You're Fired!" on it.

Melissa Rowland Case

Feministe and Trish Wilson are commenting on the Melissa Rowland case; long story short, she's being prosecuted for the death of one of her twin infants, which is ostensibly a result of her refusing to have a C-section. They link to this article and this sublime one from FindLaw.

Needless to say, I am outraged about this.

In other news...The First Woman President Symposium is actually on September 10 and 11, not September 24 and 25 as I had read before. I'm there; we need that woman president now more than ever, it seems.

Spring Break Shorts

  • I need to pre-order the new book by Siva Vaidhyanathan. Also, now might be the time to buy an iPod.
  • Another article on gender in the blogosphere. Consider this thought:

    If you accept the premise of the blogosphere as a true meritocracy, a place where our intellectual (and emotional) impulses can flourish unchecked, then you're buying into the concept of the blog world as a window into human nature. If that's the case, the blogosphere -- with perhaps just four percent female participation in poliblogs -- shows us that while women are just as interested as men in spouting off, they're fundamentally less interested than men in spouting off about politics.

    Or perhaps people don't recognize what women spout off about as politics proper.

  •   Irish Sushi, via Rebecca Blood. Yum.
  • Ann Wizer, an American artist in Indonesia, is making tote bags out of ephemeral plastic bags (grocery bags, etc.). She did this in an attempt to clean up the environment and create jobs. So guess what happened...

    Not all manufacturing companies appreciate Wizer's efforts. Last year, the German soft drink company Capri-Sonne threatened to sue for trademark infringement. They settled out of court when Wizer agreed to distribute her Capri-Sonne bags -- her most popular design -- through schools only.



    "For the big companies, this is the real issue. When does trademark die? When it's thrown away or when it goes up in toxic flames?" she says. "Frankly, they should be paying me for cleaning up their trash."

    Aaaargh!

  • A friend of mine whom I haven't talked to in years just emailed me. I can't wait to catch up with her. One night she and I attended a Gloria Steinem talk at the University of Tennessee, which a bunch of horrid archconservatives had also attended. She and I hung around and met Steinem afterward and then were so wired that we picked up burgers at Wendy's, went back to her apartment, and talked about feminism until about 1:00 a.m. Good times.
    :-)
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