Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity: Historical Constructions of Subject and Self

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Wayne State University Press, 2002 - Literary Criticism - 292 pages
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Although the writings of Foucault have had tremendous impact on contemporary thinking about subjectivity, notions of the subject have a considerable history. In Foucault, Subjectivity and Identity Robert Strozier examines ideas of subject and self that have developed throughout western thought. He expands Foucault's idea of the subject as historically determined into a wide-ranging treatment of ideas of subjectivity, extending from those expressed by the ancient Sophists to notions of the subject at the end of the twentieth century.

Strozier examines these traditions against the background of Foucault's work, especially Foucault's later writings on the history of self-relation and the subject and his idea of historical subjectivity in general. Strozier explores various periods of western thought, notably the Hellenistic era, the early Italian Renaissance, and the seventeenth century, to show that almost every treatment of subjectivity is related to the Sophist idea of the originating Subject.

Drawing on a wide spectrum of writings -- by Epicurus and Seneca, Petrarch and Montaigne, Dickens and Conrad, Freud and Judith Butler -- Strozier analyzes particular historical moments during which subjectivity becomes a crucial issue, or when a particular construction of the subject is established. He shows that these moments are important both to western thought about the subject and to what we are as subjects at the present time.

Strozier's book brings literature, literary theory, history, and philosophy into close relation. It opens a new phase of the debate about subjectivity that will prove stimulating reading for scholars in these fields.

 

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Contents

PREFACE
9
Chapter 2
52
Chapterj
79
Foucault and Materialist Reasoning
111
Chapter 5
120
Foucault Historical SelfRelation and the Ancients
139
Chapter 6
166
Descartes Interiority and Identity
209
Kant and Subjective Traditions
235
Kants Dehistoricization of the Subject
255
CONCLUSION
267
BIBLIOGRAPHY
275
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

agency analysis apperception argues argument ascesis attempt becomes binary body Butler causality chapter Cicero claim common era conception configuration consciousness constituted construction contingent critique culture deployment of sexuality Descartes Descartes's desire determined difference Diogenes Laertius emergence Epicurus example existence external Father feminist focus on interiority Foucault Foucault says Freud Freud's narrative gender genealogy heterosexual historical ontology History of Sexuality human nature human subject ibid identity imitation individual Isocrates issue Kant Kant's later Lucretius male material substratum materialist mind modern monogendering narratives of origin notion noumenon objective knowledge ontological opposition originating Subject passim perspective Petrarch philosophical pleasure political position poststructural potential practical reason problematic produced question relation representation represents resistance Secretum self-experience self-knowledge self-reflexive self-relation Seneca sense shift sixteenth century social Sophist theory specific split subject stage strategy structure subject of knowledge Subject/subject substratum theoretical Totem and Taboo traditional transcendental western thought

About the author (2002)

Strozier is an emeritus professor of English at Wayne State University.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity
TitleFoucault, Subjectivity, and Identity: Historical Constructions of Subject and Self
AuthorRobert M. Strozier
PublisherWayne State University Press, 2002
ISBN0814329934, 9780814329931
Length292 pages
Subjects › 

Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory
  
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