Surveillance studies are a vast field of research spreading across various disciplines, in line with David Lyon’s definition of surveillance as “the focused, systematic and routine attention to personal details for purposes of influence, management, protection or direction” (“Surveillance Studies: An Overview.” Surveillance Studies: A Reader. Ed. Torin Monahan and David M. Wood. Oxford: OUP, 2018. 18-21: 19). While surveillance has a strong technology-based dimension and often concerns public life and security (e.g., CCTV cameras), it pervades many more realms of both private and social activity. Approaches to surveillance from literary studies focus on its connections to literary and cultural history, narratological aspects and forms of representation. This lecture introduces students to key theoretical concepts related to surveillance and vision, such as the Panopticon (in Bentham and Foucault) or the gaze, central texts and genres (e.g., the utopia/dystopia) and most recent developments in contemporary literature, considering the rise of digital technologies on a global scale and today’s urgent interest in matters of social control and security. It will present historical perspectives, also considering forms of literary introspection and self-scrutiny from the eighteenth century onwards and examine practices of surveillance such as censorship.
- Enseignant·e: Julia Straub