Panopticism, Power-Knowledge and Subjectivation in Aboutorab Khosravi's The Books of Scribes
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES, cilt.6, sa.4, ss.100-113, 2018 (Hakemli Dergi)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 6 Sayı: 4
- Basım Tarihi: 2018
- Dergi Adı: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Other Indexes
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.100-113
- Marmara Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır
Özet
The present paper aims to closely read Aboutorab Khosravi‟s The Books of Scribes (2000), a
recent example of successful Persian novelistic discourse, in terms of Foucauldian concepts of powerknowledge, panopticism, and subjectivation. Throughout the text, three different narrations,
intermingled with two sub-stories, demonstrate identity alteration in Said and Eghlima, as two major
characters of the work. Moreover, the main characters‟ daily life is dominated by the surveillance of the
rabbis which results in Eghlima‟s murder. It also provides gaining a vaster standpoint for the perception
of the novel through illustrating the external panopticismof the rabbi and his men and its effects on
Said and Eghlima. The study demonstrates how the instances of panopticism and power-knowledge
relations clearly manifest the modes of social and self-control in contemporary Iranian society, while
the consequences of internalizing panopticism in major characters extensively function in the procedure
of their subjectivation.