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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Guantánamo Bodies: Law, Media, And Biopower, Cary Federman, Dave Holmes
Guantánamo Bodies: Law, Media, And Biopower, Cary Federman, Dave Holmes
Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
The idea of the Guantánamo detainee as a Muselmann, the lowest order of concentration camp inmates, contains within it important implications for the new understanding of sovereignty in the era of Guantánamo, in an age of exception. The purpose of this article is to explain the status of those who are detained at Guantánamo Bay. Stated broadly, in assessing that status, we will emphasize the connection between the altered meaning of sovereignty that has accompanied the placing of prisoners in an American penal colony in Cuba and the biopolitical status of the prisoners who reside there. More particularly, we …
Decapitating Power, Ladelle Mcwhorter
Decapitating Power, Ladelle Mcwhorter
Philosophy Faculty Publications
In “Society Must Be Defended” Foucault examines 17th century race war discourse not so much in order to understand 20th century racism or concepts of race but primarily because it constitutes an historical example of an attempt to think power without a head or king. This essay examines his account of race war discourse and the sources he used to construct it. It then takes issue with his claim that early race war discourse can be separated from 18th and 19th century racisms. Finally, it returns to the question of power and argues that the effect of the 1976 lecture …
Prophetic Pragmatism And The Practices Of Freedom: On Cornel West's Foucauldian Methodology, Brad E. Stone
Prophetic Pragmatism And The Practices Of Freedom: On Cornel West's Foucauldian Methodology, Brad E. Stone
Philosophy Faculty Works
This essay explores the Foucauldian influence on Cornel West’s prophetic pragmatism. Although West argues that Foucauldian methods are insufficient to deliver a philosophy of liberation, I argue that there is nothing in Foucault that would prohibit West from such a goal, even though a philosophy of liberation was not one of Foucault’s goals. Fortunately, one can understand West’s own project of liberation in terms of "practices of freedom," allowing one to describe West’s philosophical project in strict Foucauldian terms.
The Down Low And The Sexuality Of Race, Brad E. Stone
The Down Low And The Sexuality Of Race, Brad E. Stone
Philosophy Faculty Works
There has been much interest in the phenomenon called "the Down Low," in which "otherwise heterosexual" African American men have sex with other black men. This essay explores the biopolitics at play in the media’s curiosity about the Down Low. The Down Low serves as a critical, transgressive heterotopia that reveals the codetermination of racism, sexism, and heterosexism in black male sexuality.