The huntsman's funeral: targeting the sensorium

• Published in: Social identities Vol. 16; no. 5; pp. 607 - 619
• Main Author: Bishop, Ryan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis Group 01.09.2010; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Foucauldian analysis; Foucault; Foucault, Michel; Funerals; Grammar; Grammatical subject; Human Body; Knowledge; Language use; Legitimacy; Radio; Sensory perception; Social change; Subjectivity; target; Technology; the senses; Transitivity; Urban Areas; Valence; Voice (Grammatical)
• ISSN: 1350-4630; 1363-0296
• DOI: 10.1080/13504630.2010.509564

Using Foucault's early radio address 'Utopian Body' as an initial starting point, this paper examines the role of sensorium in the production, circulation and legitimization of knowledge, especially as it pertains to an understanding of a transparent operation of senses. Using targeting as an example of the ways in which the senses combine with transitive grammar to reinforce specific notions of the subject and subjectivity, the article offers a variety of visual texts and grammatical examples (namely the middle voice) to consider the ways in which Foucault's writings in The Birth of the Clinic and 'Utopian body' both subvert common-sense understandings of transitivity, the subject, the body and the senses (again through targeting) and reinforce them. The article includes a brief foray into teletechnologies and urban attacks.