Just One More ...

Grading is done ... sort of. I was done last night after spending another round reading the essay section of the exam. Some were exceptionally good, while others ... should have showed up to class when we discussed the essay question.

So after 8 hours or since I posted my grades, I already have 4 students seeking clarification. That's fine. None are actually complaining about their grade, but the day is still young.

I couldn't sleep again today. I woke up early with thoughts about my chapter again. I was going over what I needed to do today. Not surprisingly, most of it was about my chapter. On a positive note, I did receive my last two books from Amazon.com. I ordered a ton of replacements after I lost a set of books in the mail when I moved from Los Angeles. I'm still a little peeved about that one. That's several dozen books of intense close reading with all sorts of marks and notations that is not so easy to replace. The books are as I got most of them replaced in the past several months. But to go over and replace the notations? That's hard.

Anyways, I picked up two new books by feminist sociologist Carol Smart: Feminism and the Power of Law (1989), and Law, Crime, and Sexuality: Essays in Feminism (1995). I got around to Smart by way of another feminist sociologist, Vikki Bell, in her book, Interrogating Incest: Feminism, Foucault, and the Law (1993). Bell acknowledges the influence of Smart's analysis of the law as a "disciplinary" mechanism, a juridico-discursive conception of power that has characterized feminist analysis of power and politics:

... [the] law is only central and important to the extent that we accept its self-definition.... [Smart] regards the law as a discourse which has a privileged position from which to exercise power. Within the parameters of the legal method, the law 'is able to refute and disregard alternative discourses and to claim a special place in the definition of events.' The argument is that although other knowledges and other interpretations of events are articulated both within the legal process and outside law, they are only selectively 'heard.' The law exercises its power to disqualify knowledges and definitions of events through the notion of a legal method. Frequently, other knowledge is heard only to the extent that it can be recast as pertinent to legal issues. If not, it is excluded. For example, in a rape case, the woman's knowledge of events is only 'heard' when it touches upon what the law sees as relevant (10).

Both Smart and Bell are firmly situated in Foucauldian feminist analysis of power and subjectivity, a critique of the body and sexuality away from naturalized conceptions to constructed representations. Their work, and subsequently mine as well, calls attention to the ways in which the law is more than a repressive mechanism (i.e., mode of punishment), but also constitutes a mechanism of normalization.

Anyways, I seem to be jumping ahead since both Bell and Smart are going to be used in my conclusion about the intellectual and political relationship between political science and cultural studies. But first things first: finish my last chapter before the end of the month.

Oh wait ... I still have to take care of 1 student in my class who was called away to duty mid-semester (hence, the title of this post ... hehe). He's still enrolled in my course so I need to call the Registrar's Office for clarification on what to do about his status. I hope it's just an administrative oversight.