Costelloe-KuehnCommentMemo26-30Denver

I remember you saying in class that your broad object of interest is power and the way it operates through different institutions. your first abstract could be framed as an exploration of the ways in which the institution of the family maintains the status quo... have you read althusser's work on the "ideological state apparatuses" in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays? i'll e-mail you the notes from michael mascarenhas. [|Link]to the article.

here's an excerpt too: “I shall call Ideological State Apparatuses a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions. I propose an empirical list of these which will obviously have to be examined in detail, tested, corrected and re-organized. With all the reservations implied by this requirement, we can for the moment regard the following institutions as Ideological State Apparatuses (the order in which I have listed them has no particular significance): The family obviously has other ‘functions’ than that of an ISA. It intervenes in the reproduction of labour power. In different modes of production it is the unit of production and/or the unit of consumption.
 * the religious ISA (the system of the different churches),
 * the educational ISA (the system of the different public and private ‘schools’),
 * the family ISA, [|__[8__]]
 * the legal ISA, [|__[9__]]
 * the political ISA (the political system, including the different parties),
 * the trade-union ISA,
 * the communications ISA (press, radio and television, etc.),
 * the cultural ISA (literature, the arts, sports, etc.).”

for the second abstract, you could check out stuff on "the educational ISA," as well as Foucault's explication of the similarity between schools, barracks, hospitals, insane asylums, etc.

have you heard of [|FIRST Robotics]? it might be interesting to check out in relation to your last abstract.