Lecture of March 28th, 1973

The last lecture. Coming soon, summaries of the lectures in Subjectivité et Vérité: Cours au Collège de France. 1980-1981, published a few weeks ago.

Foucault refers to the role of the prison, as the dominant form of the punishment of criminality, having a history of 150 years. It has been a failure from the beginning in that criminals and recidivists did not decline in number, while the coherence of delinquents as a group increased. The architecture of the prison is discussed in relation to the development of the state. The prison has a particular kind of space, in a star shape. The centre of the star is an observation tower which is the place of constant and universal surveillance of prisoners. The arms of the start shaped prison contain the life and work of the prisoners, pushed towards complete regularity and order.

The architectural…