Subjectivity : Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway

by Mansfield, Nick

• ISBN13: 9780814756515
• ISBN10: 0814756514
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

What am I referring to when I say "I"? This little word is so easy to use in daily life, yet it has become the focus of intense theoretical debate. Where does my sense of self come from? Does it arise spontaneously or is it created by the media or society?This concern with the self, with our subjectivity, is now our main point of reference in Western societies. How has it come to be so important, and what are the different ways in which we can approach an understanding of the self? Nick Mansfield explores how our notions of subjectivity have developed over the past century. Analyzing the work of key modern and postmodern theorists such as Freud, Foucault, Nietzsche, Lacan, Kristeva, Deleuze and Guattari, and Haraway, he shows how subjectivity is central to debates in contemporary culture, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, postmodernism, and technology.

Table of Contents

Foreword	v
Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(12)
The free and autonomous Individual	13	(12)
Freud and the split subject	25	(13)
Lacan: The subject is language	38	(13)
Foucault: the subject and Power	51	(15)
Femininity: From female imaginary to performativity	66	(13)
Kristeva and abjection: Subjectivity as a process	79	(13)
Masculinity: Saving the post-Oedipal world	92	(13)
Radical sexuality: From perverse to queer	105	(13)
Subjectivity and ethnicity: Otherness, policy, visibility, colonialism	118	(18)
Deleuze and Guattari: Rhizomatics	136	(12)
The subject and technology	148	(14)
The subject and postmodernism	162	(12)
Conclusion	174	(7)
Glossary	181	(5)
Bibliography	186	(7)
Index	193