On docile bodies
Silence, control and surveillance as self-imposed disciplines in Anna Burns’ Milkman
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12302634 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marisol Morales Ladrón (0000-0002-2100-7346, Universidad de Alcalá, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 265-279 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Irish Studies Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0967-0882 • E-ISSN: 1469-9303 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09670882.2023.2198081 |
| OpenAlex | W4362623824 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 14 |
Anna Burns, the first Northern-Irish woman to have been awarded the Booker Prize for her novel "Milkman" in 2018 has been celebrated since then as a lucid and necessary voice in the contemporary panorama. Set in an unknown location in Northern Ireland, at a time when "The Troubles" were at its peak, the narrative defiantly targets at what appears to be sexual harassment, to further disclose layers of more subtle meanings related to sociopolitical (self-)control and surveillance, in an atmosphere of pathological silence. Informed by Michel Foucault's theories, developed in his studies "Discipline and punish" and "The history of sexuality", this article explores Burns' novel in light of Foucault's model of biopower, defined as a "technology of power centered on life", within which the panopticon will be revisited. I will contend that silence, consequently, surfaces as both the voluntary alternative and the inevitable consequence of the imposition of regulatory practices on docile bodies, on a disempowered microstructure of inmates that facilitates the success of such technology of power
Aesthetics · Art · Biopower · Human sexuality · Irish · Literature · Narrative · Panopticon · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Psychoanalysis · Silence · Sociology · Virtue · Gender Studies · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Irish and British Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
Discipline and Punish
The ‘unspeakableness’ of life in Northern Ireland – Anna Burns’s “Milkman”
Mourning the Troubles
Theorizing Surveillance
The Return of Panopticism
Northern Irish Writing After the Troubles
The Moment and Technique of Milkman
Milkman by Anna Burns
Measures of obliviousness and disarming obliqueness in Anna Burns' Milkman
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |