Description
Book SynopsisWhat is it like to be a person today? To think, feel, and act as an individual in a time of accelerated social, cultural, technological, and political change? This question is inspired by the double meaning of subjectivity as both the 'first-personness' of consciousness (being a subject of experience) and the conditioning of that consciousness within society (being subject to power, authority, or influence). The contributors to this volume explore the perils and promise of the self in today's world. Their shared aim is to describe where we stand and what is at stake as we move ahead in the twenty-first century. They do so by interrogating the historical moment as a predicament of the subject. Their shared focus is on subjectivity as a dialectic of self and other, or individual and society, and how the defining tensions of subjectivity are reflected in contemporary forms of individualism, identity, autonomy, social connection, and political consciousness.
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Subjectivity and strong relationality Frank C. Richardson and Robert L. Woolfolk; 2. A multi-voiced and dialogical self and the challenge of social power in a globalizing world Hubert J. M. Hermans; 3. Technology and the tributaries of relational being Kenneth J. Gergen; 4. Melancholic subjectivity Stephen Frosh; 5. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose: self-consciousness in the twenty-first century John Hewitt; 6. New kinds of subjective uncertainty? Technologies of art, self, and confusions of memory in the twenty-first century Ciarán Benson; 7. Radical subjectivity and the n-row wampum: a general model for autonomous relations against and beyond the dominant global order? Richard J. F. Day and Adam Lewis; 8. The theory of new individualism Anthony Elliott; 9. Feminism, Foucault, and globalized subjectivity Margaret A. McLaren.
