This course concentrates on two central themes: the first is Foucault’s perception of the "genealogy" of the social sciences in relation to the practices of incarceration and punishment in mid-eighteenth century Europe. The second follows his perception of contemporary interpretations of self-identity as they have been generated by: the continued growth of penal institutions, the social sciences as disciplines of “subjectivity”, the distinction between torture and punishment, and subjective vs. objective surveillance.