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Looking Daggers: A Psychoanalytical Reading of the Scene of Punishment

NCJ Number
185335
Journal
Punishment & Society Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Dated: October 2000 Pages: 379-394
Author(s)
Claire Valier
Date Published
October 2000
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article explores the connections between subjectivity and legal punishment.
Abstract
The article includes several visual and literary representations of imprisonment. Regarding the emotional significance of the act of punishing, the reading advanced challenges Durkheimian and Foucauldian understanding of the meaning of punishment. This renders somewhat premature the question of whether contemporary punishment can be described as "post-disciplinary." Proceeding from that primary thesis, the article goes on to argue for the work of psychoanalytic reading as a valuable critical and reflexive exercise in the study of punishment. Scholarship that fails to elaborate in any detail the complexities of the intrasubjective does not facilitate a reflexive approach to punishment. A critical reading of the literature on punishment such as described in this article entails rejecting the generality and crudity of characterizations of psychoanalysis as positivistic, narrowly individualistic or normalizing. The article illustrates the immense potential of psychoanalytic theory for thinking through sensitively and responsibly the difficult questions that arise in connection with the practice of legal punishment. Figures, notes, references

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