Stories from Summer Vacation: Bentham in a Box, by Randy Lewis
Today, Dr. Randy Lewis tells us about chilling with philosopher Jeremy Bentham during a research trip to London:
One of my happy tasks this summer was not just exploring the splendors of the British Library, but also visiting the collections at nearby University College London. For anyone writing a book about surveillance, UCL is a special place because it is home to the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Scholars can consult a vast trove of papers and books related to the myriad projects and interests of this early 19th century reformer, best known for his controversial plans for English penitentiaries. Eager to create a more humane alternative to the shackling of convicts in pre-Dickensian hellholes, Bentham tried to imagine a scheme in which mental constraints would replace physical ones. By locating a nearly invisible warden at the center of a specially designed circular prison, Bentham proposed “a new mode of obtaining power, power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” Because prisoners would never know when they were being watched in this so-called Panopticon, they would have to assume that they were under constant surveillance and act accordingly. Although the design was not widely implemented in English penitentiaries, the concept of the Panopticon has become fundamental to surveillance studies in the age of all-seeing drones, online dataveillance, and the sort of Orwellian NSA activities to which Edward Snowden has alerted the world.As delighted as I was to ruminate over Bentham’s correspondence and personal book collection, I was even more charmed to meet the man in the flesh, sagging though it was. It’s not every day that you have a chance to meet a 250-year-old philosopher, but you can always find Mr. Bentham sitting quietly in a public hallway at UCL. In an act of considerable irony, the architect of the Panopticon is now on permanent display in a sturdy wooden box. Fresh-faced students pore over their exam notes at nearby tables, seemingly oblivious to the ghoulish sight in their midst: a well-fed utilitarian, almost two centuries dead, stuffed like a hunter’s trophy and mounted in a box. Philosophical taxidermy may sound off-putting to some, but it is exactly what Bentham sought in his afterlife. The master of omnivalence wanted to keep gazing at the world he loved, keeping a waxwork eye on the subtle passage of time at a university he helped to found. Perhaps his only gripe is that he can’t get out to see more than the contents of a dark academic hallway. Would he enjoy boating on the Thames or a touring the countryside in the back of a pickup? I’d like to think so. Unfortunately for the ever-curious philosopher, his wooden crate is not just stationary (no wheels or hovercraft skirts are evident) but also subject to banker’s hours. Each night at 5:00 pm, he is sealed up unceremoniously in his windowless box like Senor Wences’s puppet on the old Ed Sullivan show.Notwithstanding the eccentric fate of his corpse, the intellectual seriousness of Bentham’s life and work continues to reward those who approach his oeuvre with an open mind. He is not the heartless stooge of the Enlightenment that some have suggested---even if he is indeed headless. After many years on display, Bentham’s head could no longer survive the inadequacies of 19th century taxidermy. Allegedly, its decomposition was accelerated when UCL students used it as a soccer ball on a campus lawn. The university denies the charge, but does concede that Bentham’s head has been replaced with a suitable replica whose expression is charming to behold. Bentham looks quite pleased with himself nowadays---and why not? He is one of the few 250-year-old men to remain above ground in suit and hat, smiling at students who continue to debate his ideas. Despite his unorthodox afterlife and somewhat distorted intellectual reputation, Bentham still has something to teach us---or so I’m arguing in the pages I’m now writing. As is the case for most books about surveillance, Bentham is lurking somewhere at the core of my project, exerting a subtle influence over all that he surveils from his invisible perch. Indeed, for someone writing about security, discipline, and the psychology of surveillance, Bentham is always the ghost in the machine, the uninvited presence that haunts every page of prose. It may seem spooky to have a spectral companion spying on one’s scholarship, but the master of the Panopticon wouldn’t have it any other way.
Stories from Summer Vacation: Eddie Whitewolf Visits Old Fort Parker
Next up is a travelogue from Eddie Whitewolf, who describes his journey to Old Fort Parker, the site of the Fort Parker Massacre:This summer has been spent working. Thrilling, right? However, my wife Brandi and I have spent each Sunday going on a road trip to the surrounding areas of Austin and/or visiting different Travis County and Texas State parks. We’ve become incredibly familiar with the hiking trials of Inks Lake State Park, we’ve gone swimming in the Pedernales River the past three Sundays at Milton Reimer’s Ranch, and we’ve climbed to the top of Enchanted Rock (remembering why we shouldn’t while wearing only our jogging shoes).However, for most of the summer I was looking forward to one road trip in particular. This was my trip to Fort Parker State Park to visit Old Fort Parker, just north of Groesbeck, Texas. In 1836, my great-great-great grandmother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was abducted by a group of Comanches during the Fort Parker Massacre. The first I heard of this story was when my grandmother, Ann Whitewolf (maiden name Parker), told it to me. She passed it down to me as a sort of watered down family history: Cynthia Ann was kidnapped, assimilated to Comanche life, took a husband and gave birth to the famous Comanche chief Quanah Parker, my great-great-grandfather. The history is of course a lot more complicated, as I’ve learned over the years, but I’ve always wanted to visit the site where two sides of my family violently clashed in what is a truly mythic story from the American frontier.
There are a number of books and films, fiction and non-fiction, that tell the story of the Fort Parker Massacre and the life of Cynthia Ann Parker. I had a pretty distinct image in my head: a fort surrounded by rolling fields of high grass close to the Navasota River. Instead, I found it to be situated in a small clearing that was almost completely surrounded by a forest. Additionally, the fort seemed to be missing certain structural features that played a large part in the history. Where, for instance, was the giant door into the fort that was fatefully left open on that day in 1836? Finally, everywhere I looked I was reminded of the fact that this recreation was available for a number of uses. Electric extension cords and twinkling Christmas lights stretched over the entire fort. It was a constant reminder to me that the fort, a mythic site of American frontier history (at least to me), can be rented out for private parties and weddings.
The strangest feature of all, however, was the educational video that seemed to be the centerpiece of the fort. When Brandi and I got to the fourth cabin while touring the fort, there was a small television set and a DVD player with a nearby remote. We had to restart the DVD, which began to play a video that had obviously been poorly transferred from VHS. Written and directed in 1986 by eighth-grader Jillian Preet, the video was titled “The Blue-Eyed Comanche,” and it told the story of Cynthia Ann Parker.
The video featured a number of problematic issues. It used imagery of American Indians that had no relation to the story being told, thereby conflating all American Indians under the banner of “Comanche.” Additionally, it seemed to imply that all Comanches are now simply figures of a brutal and romanticized past of truly mythic proportions, thereby ignoring the modern Comanche Nation and our continued existence.And yet, the video was strangely endearing. Ms. Preet actually did a remarkable job on the research for the time and for her age. She gave a truly balanced history, not privileging either the side of the white Parker clan or the group of American Indians that banded together to raid Fort Parker. Finally, given the image and sound editing facilities that the normal eighth-grader had access to in 1986, the video had a pretty complex sound design!What did this visit to Fort Parker teach me? As someone who comes from a background in cinema studies, wherein research trips really only took the form of visiting an archive or spending some time on Netflix, the trip to Fort Parker reminded me of the importance of tempering my preconceived notions of what a historical site could or should be. Additionally, it also pointed out the dangers of presenting educational material to the public that was wildly out of date and potentially biased (as some of the displays really seemed to be).I now have a new goal in regards to Old Fort Parker now that I’ve visited it: looking into helping them update their educational displays. As interesting as “The Blue-Eyed Comanche” was for me, perhaps it’s time to update the version of the story told by an eighth-grader in 1986. Maybe that can be a project for an upcoming summer.
Stories from Summer Vacation: Kirsten Ronald's Summer of Dance
Here's a dispatch from Ph.D. student Kirsten Ronald, who discusses her summer of teaching dance lessons.
Hello friends! I passed my oral exams in April, so this summer I’m doing all those fun post-orals things: putting together a dissertation committee, working on my prospectus, and investigating the brave new world of grant writing. And yes, for those of you who know about my penchant for rubrics, I am already making flowcharts and schedules galore to help keep myself on track. I’ve even got a timeclock called Toggl, so I can punch in and out of work. Some things are just too much fun to resist.
But after so many months of sitting still and not talking to anyone while studying for orals, man, I've just got to dance. I learned how to two-step back when I first moved to Austin, and there’s still nothing I like to do better on a hot Texas summer night. For all its aspirations to be a global city and the live music capital of the world, Austin is still very much in Texas, which means that in addition to being home to some of the best barbecue in the state, it also has an awesome (and growing) old school country and honkytonk scene. I’m not talking the watered-down twang of pop country here - Austin’s country music is hot, dirty, and downright swampy, with far more boozy lovin’ and leavin’ than will ever make it onto KUT. The dance is alive and evolving, too, a hot and sweaty mashup of traditional moves with East Coast swing, Lindy Hop, West Coast, and jive. It’s Texas two-step with a cosmopolitan twist, and the chance to create something new and beautiful every single time you go out on the dance floor makes it wildly addictive.Last summer, I started teaching two-step lessons at a local honkytonk called The White Horse, and since then my partner and I have formed a little dance company called Two Left Foots that teaches free beginning and intermediate lessons to 50 or 60 students a week. We’re a small, new addition to a very large, very old and very well-established scene that is growing like everything else in Austin. It’s a ton of fun with a lot of wonderful, warm, accepting people, it’s great exercise, and it’s a great way to be a living part of Austin and Texas history. So come on out, y’all. And don’t forget to bring your boots!
Stories from Summer Vacation: Jeannette Vaught and Food-Industry-Animal Research in the Archive
Our next report comes from Ph.D. candidate Jeannette Vaught, who describes a recent research trip to Ames, Iowa, to research Iowa State University's Special Collection for materials on food and animals.
Early this summer I took my last major research trip to the Iowa State University Special Collections in Ames, which houses massive collections of veterinary and agricultural materials spanning decades of scientific research, industry marketing, and political lobbying. Since my dissertation accounts for animals used both for sport and food, the ISUSC provided the bulk of my food-industry-animal research. Most of these collections have gone largely untapped, judging by the amount of dust rising from many a box of documents. At one point, the archivists had a difficult time locating a box from the Beef Improvement Federation collection, and were extra perplexed by its absence since, well, no researcher had ever requested it before! I capped off my 10 days in the archives by swinging down to Des Moines for the amazingly weird World Pork Expo, the major annual industry trade show. While I write about cattle, not hogs, the Expo nevertheless showcased every detail that goes into industrial meat: booths represented reproductive technologies ranging from individual insemination techniques to patented genes; feeding technologies from fortified corn products to methods of delivering the food to the animal; management technologies from gestation pens (excuse me, now they are called “individual maternity areas”) to slaughter restraints – the list goes on and on. There was also the option of eating some fresh meat scraped from the proverbial whole (roasted) hog, cracklins included. Talking to industry people and hearing their takes on their role in American food production was as useful as the bounty of primary historical records I took home from the archives.
The remainder of the summer will be spent turning that research into chapters. I have a handful more interviews to conduct with sport and industry veterinarians at Texas A&M, but once those are completed, it’s pretty much all writing from here on out. In other animal news, I’ll still be hanging out with my horse, Dallas, and teaching riding twice a week, and am adopting a greyhound to share my apartment with come July.