Drawing on an unexplored archive of texts related to theories of punishment, ranging from Antiphon to Nietzsche, the article makes a case for rethinking transmission and propagation of ideas as a distinct mode of transhistorical community building. Incorporate fellowships cannot be conceived of either as sections of an amorphous intertext, à la Kristeva, or as traditions handed down within authoritative canons. They may include agents that are pseudonymous or fictional and that are often unidentifiable to some or even most members of the community in question. Yet these fellowships are invariably animated by an agglomerated human presence composed of men and women thought of as embodied even though they interact incorporeally. Based on a close analysis of texts and figures that debated the death penalty, and that are overlooked in Michel Foucault’s influential discussion in Discipline and Punish, the article seeks to offer a theoretically grounded argument against the long-standing dominance of the social sciences in the study of the history of ideas.
Boris Maslov (Sun,) studied this question.