Structured Visions

When I was teaching conversation classes in France I invented a game designed to encourage students to speak more English to each other. Each player started with 12 paperclips, and they’d have to forfeit one each time another player caught them speaking a language other than English. The goal was to acquire as many paperclips … Continue reading The Paperclip Game

When I was teaching conversation classes in France I invented a game designed to encourage students to speak more English to each other. Each player started with 12 paperclips, and they’d have to forfeit one each time another player caught them speaking a language other than English. The goal was to acquire as many paperclips … Continue reading The Paperclip Game

How do you know if a social structure is having an impact on you? Have a look around and notice if there’s anything you recognise. If you’re using language to label the things in the room, for instance, you’re participating in a linguistic structure. A language structure is a social structure inasmuch as it is … Continue reading Liza Got Hair: Thwarting Recognisability

How do you know if a social structure is having an impact on you? Have a look around and notice if there’s anything you recognise. If you’re using language to label the things in the room, for instance, you’re participating in a linguistic structure. A language structure is a social structure inasmuch as it is … Continue reading Liza Got Hair: Thwarting Recognisability

Last week I talked about how bodies are disciplined to conform to societal norms. This week I discuss the pressure to conform to a consistent identity. I explore this idea in relation to two renowned scholarly figures – Michel Foucault and Monica from Friends. I get curious about how the enjoyment of the body might … Continue reading Let’s Dance!

Last week I talked about how bodies are disciplined to conform to societal norms. This week I discuss the pressure to conform to a consistent identity. I explore this idea in relation to two renowned scholarly figures – Michel Foucault and Monica from Friends. I get curious about how the enjoyment of the body might … Continue reading Let’s Dance!

We’re still talking about bodies but this week the focus is on how they’re disciplined. I explain some of the ideas in Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish. An important component of Foucault’s work is the mechanisms that keep societal structures in place. In a feudal society, structured hierarchically according to the birthright of the … Continue reading Episode 12: Foucault, the Panopticon and the Tyranny of Cartwheels

We’re still talking about bodies but this week the focus is on how they’re disciplined. I explain some of the ideas in Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish. An important component of Foucault’s work is the mechanisms that keep societal structures in place. In a feudal society, structured hierarchically according to the birthright of the … Continue reading Episode 12: Foucault, the Panopticon and the Tyranny of Cartwheels

If you were in a position to make a judgement about someone – in a job interview, for instance – would you take into account what their body looked like? One widespread societal message is that the uniqueness, the individuality, the ‘personhood’ of a person has nothing to do with what their body looks like. … Continue reading Episode 11: I’m So Fat and So Short. The Fragmented Body

If you were in a position to make a judgement about someone – in a job interview, for instance – would you take into account what their body looked like? One widespread societal message is that the uniqueness, the individuality, the ‘personhood’ of a person has nothing to do with what their body looks like. … Continue reading Episode 11: I’m So Fat and So Short. The Fragmented Body